The fish that just won´t survive in your tank...

[plancton]

I´m sure this has happened to many of us. You buy a fish that is not particulary delicate yet it keeps dying in your tank for unknown reasons. So tell me your story, I have my list:

My tank is a 175 gal, good water quality, 1 hippo blue tang, 1 mimic yellow lemmon peel tang, 2 ocellaris clownfish, 1 filamentous wrasse.

Fish that keeps dying:

Royal Gramma- My first saltwater fish was a royal gramma in a 75 gal tank. It ate pellets on the second day, had really cool personality. It lived 3 years in the 75 gal, then upgraded to a 175 gal and lived there for a year, and started to look old, and apparently died of old age.

So I decided to have another one, placed it in the tank, it hid and was never seen again, bought another one; died the same way. Bought another one; died the same way, bought another one; lasted 2 weeks continuosly comming out but would not eat flakes or pellets and apparently starved to death.
So then I bought the 5th one, and placed it in the fuge, fed it frozen brine shrimp, he kept eating twice a day, for 2 weeks in perfect condition, so I decided to add it to the main tank; It hid and was never seen again!.


Yellow tang- bought one that would eat flakes but not much of them, so I would give it nori plus there was algae on the rocks, but I never saw it eating much, don´t know why, it lived for almost 2 months.

Bought another one, and it lived for 2 days and dissapeared!.

Bought a third one which was rather large and supposedly from another reefer who got rid of his tank. And it lived for 2 days and found him dead only because it was quite big!.


blue chromis- would end up dead in the overflow or kill each other, there would be one survivor out of 10 in only 5 days, and that one survived for 5 months and dissapeared.

[DaveMorris]

The Naso Tang is my unicorn. It is my favorite fish and everyone seems to be able to keep them except me. I have had 4 of them in the last two years and the longest any have survived is about a month. Two of the four were extremely healthy when I got them. I don't know what it is, but I am not going to kill anymore of them. I'll just have to look at them longingly in somebody else's tank.

[Vapour1ze]

something killing them after lights out?? I don't think all of that ^^ can be bad luck unless you have a real bad LFS =/ good luck to you in the future.

[BuddhaKiss]

I guess for me it would be a lemonpeel angel. The first one I got, it wouldn't eat. This went on for 2 weeks. I tried brine, mysis, flakes, and cyclopeeze. Nothing. It died after the 2nd week. I tried another one and was successful in getting it go eat. It lived for about 3 months. Then my tank had a mini crash and killed it along with a blue devil damsel.
Normally if a fish dies a second time, I won't get it again.... Except for the Pygmy/cherub angelfish. I have a soft spot for them. Anyway my 1st one did great for a few months..until it got sucked up a MJ 1200. The 2nd one wouldn't eat. Of lasted a week. Got a third one and it's doing great so far. It's eating, active, and gets along with all my other fish. I guess 3rd times a charm...I hope.

[VacavilleFC3S]

2 lawnmower blennies
3 pajama cardinals
1 white sleep goby
all died within 1 week of there purchase

and yet i've kept a scooter blenny alive since month 1 and it's fat and healthy

[Paul B]

If those fish keep disappearing there is nothing wrong with the fish, it's your tank or something in it. Royal grammas live at least ten years as I have kept them longer and they are a hardy fish.
Naso tangs are a schooling fish and much more delicate.
There is nothing in your tank that would kill a royal gramma unless you have a huge mantis shrimp or carpet anemone.
All these fish that die with in a week may have been sick but I can't tell from here. It seems odd that all those fish would die in a week.
The scooter bleeny is not yet a success story, your tank is only 6 months old.

its not usually the fish but something wrong with your tank. Test kits don't test everything and the things they do test like nitrate will not kill fish unless it is rediculousely high.
Ammonia will kill fish fast but I doubt you would have any ammonia in even a slightly established tank.

[agreeive?fish]

Yellow fish of any kind but especially yellow tangs.. if it is yellow it will die within 3 weeks nomatter which tank i put it in or what tank mates if any..qt or display makes no diffrence.. i have bought them from several rc sponsors, and local fish stores in 2 diffrent states over a 5 year period and no live yellow fish in my tank(s).. i have harder to keep fish than a yellow tang such as a moorish idol and a powder blue tang and both are thriving and were both purchased AFTER my last yellow tang attempt

[srb5046th]

I have had the same with blue chromis. I have bought 2 different schools of 6. Within about a week it is always down to 1 and then the 1 survives for quite awhile.

[Ebisan]

Firefish. All of mine (5) usually committed suicide by going carpet surfing. My last 2 still found a way to get through egg crate that I had placed over the top of my old tank. Haven't bought another one.

[plancton]

I know its the tank, but it is definetely not something in the water.
In the case of the yellow tangs I don´t know, I´m thinking such a nervous fish didn´t like something in the tank and died of sadness.

And as you can see from the death of the 5th and last royal gramma, it was living very healthy in the fuge, which of course uses the same water, so it is not the water, the momment I placed it in the main tank I never saw it again.

I´ve seen mantis shrimp although its been a while I haven´t seen it, and it was about 1.5" long, the other fish have never been attacked although they were larger than the royal gramma, I have popeye crabs too.

Next fish will be a pseudochromis fridmani, they have stronger character so I´m guessing they will survive.

[James983]

Sunburst Anthias here. I love them, but I can't keep one alive for more than 2 weeks.

[xylem]

Six Line Wrass.

I had one in a 14 gallon that lived for four years.
My new 29gal is teeming with pods and bristle worms, yet wont support a six line wrass?

[DaveMorris]

As far as my struggle to keep Naso tangs, it is something wierd. I have kept quite a few fish in my day, including some that were far more delicate than a naso. The four I killed were also not all in the same tank. It spanned three completely different setups. I was able to keep one in my very first tank about eleven years ago for over three years. I don't know, maybe it's Karma. Naso Karma.

[Fish_wiz2]

Powder Blue's, i've had two (one small and large) but died of a severe ich outbreak though both ate very well. maybe i'll try again once i upgrade

[harleychic]

plancton, Are you saying you have a mantis shrimp in that tank? I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that a mantis will eat ANYTHING it can catch, which can be much larger than it. I cannot speak about popeye crabs, I don't know what those are. I can tell you that I had a 1" sally lightfoot crab that killed and ate a 3" coral beauty. Good luck to you.

[plancton]

The mantis killed and ate all of the hermits and snail, I catched 2 and I thought that was it until a few months ago I saw one. I don´t agree to the statement that they will eat ANYTHING, why haven´t they attacked the other fish?, the yellow mimic tang is 2".

There might be a predator but a picky one that attacks specific fish. Did you see the sally lightfoot crab kill the coral beauty?, most of the time they just eat dead fish.

[BigJay]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14040987#post14040987 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
If those fish keep disappearing there is nothing wrong with the fish, it's your tank or something in it. Royal grammas live at least ten years as I have kept them longer and they are a hardy fish.

Paul, it could also be collection practices (cyanide).

So far I've lost a perc clown to some unknown sickness, the clown had some kind of nasty white fuzz on it and passed away in QT the day after. The subsequent two clowns I purchased are doing fine.

Two naso tangs starved themselves to death. I swear I tried to feed them everything I could think of (flake, mysis, clam, nori, fresh gracillaria, veggie flake, pellets, chopped squid, etc), but they just refused food and wasted away over 1-2 week's time each.

One royal gramma was eaten by my 12" fat lazy useless stupid RBTA. I loved that little fish. I will probably attempt to replace it.

[DT's_Reef]

If you have certain smaller fish die a lot, and your snails die too....be sure to check for crabs.

After having my tank for 3 years, I discovered I had 3 big black crabs after rearranging some rocks, and saw a *very* slight movement. This wasn't the first time I rearranged the rocks either. They hide extremely well whether the rock is in or out of the water.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were responsible for some of the carpet surfing that went on in the middle of the night.

[reefing102]

for me it has always been lawnmower blennies. No matter how much algae I have they always seem to end up dead. Any other fish, larger or smaller, have lived fine.

[rfd515]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14042404#post14042404 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BigJay

So far I've lost a perc clown to some unknown sickness, the clown had some kind of nasty white fuzz on it and passed away in QT the day after.

Might've been brook

[jtma508]

Jawfish. I'm 0 for 5 in the 10mos we've had the tank. Saw one that died but the rest vanished. No corpses, no carpet surfers. Alien abduction most likely.

And red firefish. 0 for 3. I've had a purple firefish (one of my favs) almost since the tank went up but the red ones just don't make it.

[plancton]

thats the weird thing haven´t found any of the royal grammas corpses.

I can only imagine the mantis shrimp has a cave where he collects dissected corpses of fish for his own viewing pleasure.

I made a home made trap one day, it never caught anything but snails. What about the X-terminator trap? does it work?

[reidcrandall]

With my old tank it was the Splendid Dottyback. I really liked them about 5 years ago when you could first get them tank raised. I had other small fish that did fine (6 line, bi-color blenny, mandarin) that did fine, so I don't know that it was predation. Never could keep any of those dottybacks for over a few weeks. I tried 3 times.

[Paul B]

Paul, it could also be collection practices (cyanide).

Yes it could, that used to be a big problem but I don't think it is used as much as it was, I could be wrong though.
Are the fish still living in the store after your's died?

[Albanets202]

Plancton: +1 on mantis. Your grammas are DEFINITELY eaten by mantis. he is a fierce predator. He can easily catch them in rocks. They like to lie there. Tangs swim constantly.

[jubjub]

you guys might laugh at me on this one...but my unicorns are snails i've never had an algae outbreak, there is like absolutely no hair algae anywhere in my tank... and i honestly just cant get algae to grow....so they all starve and die im guessing....

edit: just noticed you said fish ha! anywho i would say just about any fish at the moment my flame angel has killed a anthias, a mandarin, and a blue eye tang i thought it was honestly the tang but i think the flame has met his match with the niger trigger HA!

[plancton]

does the x-terminator trap work?

[FranktheTankTx]

Chromis have so far been the worst - but everyone has this trouble. Mine keep jumping into the overflow and I find them in my filter sock the next morning.

The original thread maker is going to have 7 Royal Grammas burst out of his live rock someday. Ha!!

[thebest3]

achille tang, lost 2.
salfin lost 1
blue tang(tiny) lost 1
powder blue lost 1
neon gobie lost 2
most anthias can,t keep track..(two out of the four sunburst)
tile fishlost 3(two differnt type)
manderin gobie
clown trigger(small)
copper band
angel..
blue spot gobie..
im pretty sure there couple more i miss...

[Moto_fish]

Woah... how do you kill a clown trigger Thebest3?