Rediscovering Fish

[nosferatu51]

BIG SURPRISE for me tonight.
I just happened to be looking in my sump/fuge this evening and out of the corner of my eye I see something dart very quickly when I open the door. My fuge's water comes in below the sandbed and rises up so technically what I saw was UNDER the fuge.
I went to snag my flashlight and see what it was. Lo and behold, I see a mandarin! I haven't bought a mandarin in, no joke, at least 6 months and haven't seen one in about that long as well. I've bought 2 in the year that I've had this tank. One was killed by what I assume is a rogue crab somewhere in the tank as he had been shredded. He was fairly large. The original one I bought was a little guy. So understand my surprise when what I found ended up being the little one! He was put in this tank (a 75g) 9 months or so ago and I haven't seen him in AT LEAST 6, if not more. What a pleasant surprise. I wonder if he has been hiding in the overflow all this time and finally made his way down the pipe.

Makes me wonder if any of the other small fish that have "gone missing" over time are actually hiding somewhere. Over time I've lost a few small fish that I never found corpses for and assumed were also the victims of "the crab". I'm looking forward to moving the tank to the 125 soon and seeing if I rediscover any of these lost fish (midas blenny, purple firefish, royal gramma).

Any of you ever find a fish you thought was lost for forever?

[SDguy]

How large are your overflow teeth slots that a mandarin can fit through?

[nosferatu51]

The overflow teeth aren't really that big (just your typical AGA RR overflow), but only one of the ouput holes actually has an output pipe going through it. Therefore there's a decent (I dunno, 1" diameter) hole in the side of the overflow he could have swam through. He's a fairly little guy though.

[SDguy]

Ah, I see. Well glad you found him. Are you able to extract him since he is "under" your fuge?

[nosferatu51]

I could, but it would probably disturb the fuge too much. I'm moving in under a month (or so they tell me) and figured he would be ok under there for that time. If ya'll feel he should be moved, I'll do it. I just figured he would be fine there.

I was thinking about it and it might be fairly simple to cut the netting over the egg crate after moving some of the rubble and sand. This would allow him to swim up into the fuge while not really disturbing the fuge too much. This would also give him access to the tons of pods in there (which I can see crawling all over) since he looks a bit on the skinny side.

Here's what the fuge is like to give you a better idea of where he is right now:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/111803fuge_reszied.jpg

[jnc914]

I had a yellow watchman goby that disappeared for about a month. then one day I decided to switch up the rocks and there he was hanging out in a burrow, and he had grown substantially.

[MC Lighting]

sadly I lost a few fish and did find them but they went carpet surfing I did not find this out until I had moved my 180... I did have a wrasse though that loved to jump into the overflow all the time...

[Kahuna Tuna]

I had a yellow watchman that had gone missing for at least six months and then one day there he was in the sump. This was about six years ago and the old boy is still kickin.

[CarlC]

Why remove him. If he looks healthy he is getting what he needs where he is. He could be like that weird family member that everyone has. No one like to visit them but you know they are there. :-)

Carl

[seapug]

I had a bicolor blenny in my first Nanocube that swam into the return pipe when I was cleaning the nozzle thingy one day. I put it back on and didn't clean it again for 3 months. I thought the little brain coral nipping bastard died under a rock. When I finally cleaned it again he came swimming out looking all pale and emaciated then croaked a couple days later. Should have stayed in the pipe.