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View Full Version : 2 missing fish, 1 attacked fish...intruder?


MG_MonteCristo
07/15/2011, 03:11 PM
Hi all,

We've been keeping a reef tank for 4 months. Recently, our jawfish freaked out. When we saw him, his fins were all torn up. He's moved back into his old home now and is healed, but in the last 3 weeks, we've lost 2 firefish. They are 100% gone. They were hiding under a rock and have now completely disappeared, the second one about 3 weeks after the first. We lifted up the rock they usually hid under and found nothing. They looked just fine before they disappeared.

It's a peaceful tank, mostly. We suspected the coral banded shrimp but never saw him with any of the carcasses. In fact, we found no carcasses. The tank has a lid and we have not found either of them on the floor.

The one thing we're concerned about is a strange worm. We saw it one night sticking its head out of the live rock. It disappeared though and we've never seen it again. We've done some time lapse night shots and found nothing. We don't know what's been attacking the fish. Could this worm be the feather duster worm we put in 2 months ago? (the coral beauty nipped at it and it lost its crown, abandoned its tube and went into the live rock) or is it something predatory that could have picked off our fire fish?

29 Gal Biocube HQI with skimmer and lighted refugium (chaetomorpha)
fish: midas blenny, pearly jawfish, coral beauty angel, 2 percula clown babies
corals: frogspawn, leather coral, ricordias, star polyps, gorgorian, zoos & duncans
inverts: coral banded shrimp, sand sifting star, brittle star, nassarius snails & hermit crabs.

pH: 8.3
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 5-10 ppm

Dana42078
07/15/2011, 03:16 PM
Hear any clicking in the tank? Did the worm look like this.....pretty sure they just eat coral tho.....if your hearing clicking could be a mantis or pistol hitch hiker...

Is your lid covering the WHOLE top of the tank. Ive seen leapord wrasse's jump through the tiniest holes ever so i assume a firefish could jump through smaller. Both my jawfish and firfish jumped and i looked 2 dozen times before i actually found them on my floor all dried up.....hope u find out whats going on...

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=19027259&posted=1#post19027259

sporto0
07/15/2011, 03:17 PM
Firefish are sneaky & slick, check all of your overflows & sump, I found mine in both of those places after months of thinking it was gone. The coral banded could have caught your jaw fish at night, they can be pretty aggressive but the clowns/damsels are probably the culprit, they are the meanest on your livestock list.

Sk8r
07/15/2011, 03:45 PM
coral banded shrimp. They do not sleep, I suspect, but fish do, and firefish, like jawfish, sleep in holes, where they are easy prey for something like a cbs.

papagimp
07/15/2011, 05:41 PM
coral banded shrimp. They do not sleep, I suspect, but fish do, and firefish, like jawfish, sleep in holes, where they are easy prey for something like a cbs.

The first, last, and only time I had a CBS, immediately after adding it to my display it went on a rampage with my fish. As far as CBS goes I think I had an extremely violent specimen as I've seen others a little better behaved. I'll never own another again. On another note, I lost a couple burrowing fish due to them diggin under a rock and causing a colapse before. Lost my poor 14" Engineer that way :( poor little fella.

MG_MonteCristo
07/15/2011, 05:49 PM
Thanks, everyone. We've checked all surrounding floors. We aren't running a sump and I've looked inside the back of the tank, under the couches, in the windows, etc.

That worm, however, DID look like the worm in the photo. Do you think that could have taken out the firefish and attacked the jawfish? The clowns we have are actually fairly docile. We got them from a breeder as tiny babies and they aren't even adults yet and are extremely even tempered to everything in the tank. The blenny was also chasing them around for awhile, but after a few weeks, he left them alone.

We suspected the CBS , too, but everything he eats he holds in his mouth for awhile before he does it and during the 2nd disappearance, i checked him every few hours and he had nothing. We thought about a mantis, but there hasn't been any clicking. We actually saw a mantis for sale in our local LFS. That thing was HORRIBLE and someone actually bought it. Yikes. Anyway, I did notice the firefish sleeping outside NEXT to the rocks instead of inside them, so that puts the CBS back on the list.
Any other ideas?

MG_MonteCristo
07/15/2011, 05:56 PM
i was reading this post after the eunicid worm photo http://www.3reef.com/forums/inverts/i-seem-have-eunicid-worm-85080.html
and he mentioned that it was taking starfish legs off. I noticed a few months ago that our starfish was missing the tips of all its feet!!!
do you all think that this worm could be the cause of the 2 missing firefish, the rips in the jawfish, AND the starfish missing tips of its feet? if so, we need to get it out asap because, well, that sucks...

Angel*Fish
07/15/2011, 06:07 PM
The photo doesn't show up on my computer, but 99% of worms could not be responsible. If you have one that seems to be a eucinid, I'd get it out for sure.

Sounds like bad crab or the cbs. Not all mantises make noise.

You must have a tough little bugger of a jawfish, do him a favor and get rid of that shrimp. If he's able to cover his hole, that may be why he's still around, but it's an inappropriate combination and cbs's are bad for your tank as they are predators on your clean up crew. They eat your very valuable worms and other small beneficial crustaceans.

MG_MonteCristo
07/15/2011, 06:10 PM
We've been contemplating getting rid of him for awhile. When i bought him, he was tiny and had 1 arm. Now he's enormous and has 2 fully functional arms. I like him a lot, he's very interesting, (his name is Floyd) but i'm just afraid he IS responsible. I know for sure he ate my favorite peppermint shrimp. :( The LFS said they'll give us a good credit for him but we're not sure how to get him out. I can see him from here, looking around the rocks, his two candy-cane little arms.....
The jawfish only stays in his hole, so i'm wondering how the CBS could have gotten in there, though. i did see the CBS picking at the angel, but he seemed to be cleaning him....

Mikeygo1
07/15/2011, 06:14 PM
there is a type of brittle star that are preditory I have one, it lived with my Octopus for a year, and when the Octopus pased on I made it a fish only tank and now I am loosing filefish myself. check this out.
http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Green_Brittle_Star

Angel*Fish
07/15/2011, 06:16 PM
We've been contemplating getting rid of him for awhile. When i bought him, he was tiny and had 1 arm. Now he's enormous and has 2 fully functional arms. I like him a lot, he's very interesting, (his name is Floyd) but i'm just afraid he IS responsible. I know for sure he ate my favorite peppermint shrimp. :( The LFS said they'll give us a good credit for him but we're not sure how to get him out. I can see him from here, looking around the rocks, his two candy-cane little arms.....
The jawfish only stays in his hole, so i'm wondering how the CBS could have gotten in there, though. i did see the CBS picking at the angel, but he seemed to be cleaning him....Yes, they do that cleaning thing and they love other shrimps. Jawfish will sometimes come out of their burrows at night, especially when the fish is new to the tank. If you have something nasty in there, no doubt, he shuts his door at night. However, that's not necessarily going to stop a determined predator.

A mantis or bad crab can often be found by diligent hunting with a flash light at night. You could try setting a crab trap and see what you catch. If you see something with 2 eyes that is clearly aware of you, staring back at you - that's a mantis.

There are almost no starfish appropriate for a reef tank, so the missing feet may be unrelated.

Were your firefish purchased as a mated pair?

MG_MonteCristo
07/15/2011, 06:26 PM
there were 3 in the tank and we brought 2 of them home (firefish). One was bigger than the other. They got along fine and hid in the same hole all the time and swam together constantly so we assumed they were a mated pair, tho that was never confirmed. I know they can be aggressive to each other, but they never were, and that doesn't explain how the second one disappeared after the first one was already gone.
i feel so bad for my little guys. :(
The brittle star theory isn't correct. We actually have a serpent star. The brittle star was a typo.

Angel*Fish
07/15/2011, 07:04 PM
I was only asking about the firefish in case you needed to be warned that if you replace them. that's not the way to do as there's no way to sex them and if you get two males, one will die.

Are you saying your serpent star is fine now? His tips grew back? If it is, whatever you had in there may be gone. I assume you don't have a green one. If so, I would highly suspect him.

It's hard to figure it out because the firefish could have just died of a disease they both had, jawfish are incredibly sensitive and could have freaked himself out and who knows how his fins might have been torn.

I'm sorry to say this, but after looking at your stocking list, your sand sifting star is an inappropriate animal for most tanks and definitely for a 29g tank. They die of starvation very, very slowly. I wouldn't think it would be advisable in the same tank with a jawfish, either.

The coral beauty should not be housed in a tank that size, especially cubed shaped.

You accumulated quite a lot of livestock in a very short time, that can be a recipe for some problems

MG_MonteCristo
07/16/2011, 12:23 PM
We took out the LR and found this inside....saw it moving around in there with a flashlight.
could this be what killed the firefish?

papagimp
07/16/2011, 12:27 PM
oh wow, that's sexy. Yeah I could see that being a problem

Angel*Fish
07/16/2011, 12:30 PM
Yuk. Here's something from this article The Large Worm Turns (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/index.php) by Dr. Ron Shimek:

"There are also smaller species of Eunice, and these seem to be reported from time to time in aquaria. They generally appear to be harmless scavengers, however, even I, a self-proclaimed vermophile, would consider them amongst the "usual suspects" if some small fish such as fire fish or small gobies disappeared without a trace."

By the way when he says "smaller" he was previously referring to worms that get up to 4 feet long.

MG_MonteCristo
07/16/2011, 12:36 PM
So he might actually be it then. I was searching with a laser light and I happened to see ONE of his weird little tentacles wiggling around in the rock. We pulled it out, did a freshwater dip and searched but found nothing. For good measure, we grabbed the rock that was below it and did the same and still found nothing. Then my bf cracked it in half with a hammer and pulled that out. I think the FW dip killed it and then we just had to find it. He was so fast, he made it into the rock below as it was being lifted from the water and we didn't even see it. My poor firefish. I loved them. :(

Angel*Fish
07/16/2011, 01:09 PM
So he might actually be it then. I was searching with a laser light and I happened to see ONE of his weird little tentacles wiggling around in the rock. We pulled it out, did a freshwater dip and searched but found nothing. For good measure, we grabbed the rock that was below it and did the same and still found nothing. Then my bf cracked it in half with a hammer and pulled that out. I think the FW dip killed it and then we just had to find it. He was so fast, he made it into the rock below as it was being lifted from the water and we didn't even see it. My poor firefish. I loved them. :(What an ordeal! lol Been there done it few times, though. I'm glad you caught him. There's no guarantee there's not another one in there or something else, but let's hope this is the end of it.

Jawfish are such nervous fish, I can see him noticing danger sooner and swimming to safety while the firefish might be easier caught. In my opinion you should help him out by getting rid of the sand sifting star and the cbs. This is a fish you want to bend over backwards for to make him comfortable. And if I understand what a biocube is, that means your tank is covered, right?

papagimp
07/16/2011, 01:13 PM
Jawfish are such nervous fish, I can see him noticing danger sooner and swimming to safety while the firefish might be easier caught.

+1

nervous, paranoid, and lighting fast. They usually need a pretty decently deep sandbed to construct their burrows properly (along with a little bit of small rubble and whatnot) their a verticle swimmer that'll stay above his burrow and if they get scared they do one of two things i've noticed.. either dart lighting fast into their burrow, or go straight up like a freakin' bullet! I hope you got a lid on that thing too. My experience with firefish is that their similarly quick and jumpy, first one i had, immediatly after acclimating and putting it in my tank, he shot out like a rocket across the room before I could cover the tank.

Angel*Fish
07/16/2011, 01:25 PM
+1

nervous, paranoid, and lighting fast. They usually need a pretty decently deep sandbed to construct their burrows properly (along with a little bit of small rubble and whatnot) their a verticle swimmer that'll stay above his burrow and if they get scared they do one of two things i've noticed.. either dart lighting fast into their burrow, or go straight up like a freakin' bullet! I hope you got a lid on that thing too. My experience with firefish is that their similarly quick and jumpy, first one i had, immediatly after acclimating and putting it in my tank, he shot out like a rocket across the room before I could cover the tank.
That's exactly right in escape mode, they dash into their burrow or straight up at lightning speed.

MG_MonteCristo
07/16/2011, 02:56 PM
Thanks, everyone. I thought the sifter was too big for us but the LFS said it was fine. After some more research, we've decided to take him back today.
Our jawfish has a wonderful burrow going on. We've crushed up tons of shells and rocks for him and he has made a seriously fortified place on the side of the tank that he closes up. As for the CBS, we can't catch him. The only thing we have evidence of him eating is the peppermint shrimp. Otherwise, he cleans the other fish and we try to keep him well fed. If we are able to catch him at some point, he might go back, but for now, we're keeping a close eye.
And we have the angel because he was being thrown out of someone else's tank and this was his best hope for a decent home. He seems happy, we give him proper diet, and he has tons of reef rock to explore. We don't plan to add anyone else.
And we're closely watching for more horrible worms!!

MG_MonteCristo
07/16/2011, 02:58 PM
PS yes the tank is covered.

papagimp
07/16/2011, 03:09 PM
Thanks, everyone. I thought the sifter was too big for us but the LFS said it was fine.

They don't make any money if they dont' make any sells. The wifey worked for a lfs once upon a time and would often get berated for telling customers "no that wouldn't be good for you". I bet an extremely large percentage of us learned this lesson the hard way. If you do find a LFS employee that you trust, still good practice to research first, or at a minimum, pick up a book in their store and check it against what they just told you. sadly, honesty and profit don't seem to always go hand in hand.

MG_MonteCristo
07/16/2011, 07:49 PM
yeah, no doubt. this was actually from the guy we trusted, though. when we went in, i said i'd researched it and it wasn't suitable for our tank but he convinced me it was. at this point, we will get nothing more that won't be suitable.
we took the starfish back and got an SPS frag instead. we also now have a fine GIANT fireshrimp that outsizes the CBS and is exploring his new home.

MG_MonteCristo
07/16/2011, 09:03 PM
So from the look of this macro photo, our CBS has turned out to be a hero. It looks like we had another baby eunicid worm in the tank that he now is having for dinner. what do you all think? baby worm?

papagimp
07/16/2011, 09:10 PM
you know what they say... "enemy of my enemy...."
awesome photo btw!

hollister
07/16/2011, 09:10 PM
To many fish , u want 1 fish for every 10 gallons and the smaller the tank the more non aggressive stock u want and reef fish need plenty of LR to cling to .. GL

papagimp
07/16/2011, 09:13 PM
u want 1 fish for every 10 gallons

kinda depends on the fish. I'd love a coral cat shark but don't think that 1 fish will suit my 10g. :spin3:

eodmike
07/16/2011, 09:13 PM
I got lucky my LFS is one of the few places I've been that will tell someone no don't get that. The last time I was there I heard them steer a kid away from sugar gliders (cute but not good for preteens) they also told a man they wouldn't sell "dory" to him. After the guy left I was chatting with the guy I deal with there and he was telling me that the guy was wanting to put the Tang in a tank with a lionfish and ps the tank was a 40B. Yea good catch.

Anyways yes looks like a baby worm. As long as he stays on those and not on fish your good to go. Shrimp are a pain to catch. Makes me feel like that part of Forrest Gump. You know with the toilet seat.

Angel*Fish
07/16/2011, 09:15 PM
So from the look of this macro photo, our CBS has turned out to be a hero. It looks like we had another baby eunicid worm in the tank that he now is having for dinner. what do you all think? baby worm?
Haha - yes, it sure looks like it. Maybe better to keep him around in your case, though he'll eat the good worms, too. It's so good to hear your jawfish has settled in nicely.Thanks, everyone. I thought the sifter was too big for us but the LFS said it was fine. After some more research, we've decided to take him back today.
Our jawfish has a wonderful burrow going on. We've crushed up tons of shells and rocks for him and he has made a seriously fortified place on the side of the tank that he closes up. As for the CBS, we can't catch him. The only thing we have evidence of him eating is the peppermint shrimp. Otherwise, he cleans the other fish and we try to keep him well fed. If we are able to catch him at some point, he might go back, but for now, we're keeping a close eye.
And we have the angel because he was being thrown out of someone else's tank and this was his best hope for a decent home. He seems happy, we give him proper diet, and he has tons of reef rock to explore. We don't plan to add anyone else.
And we're closely watching for more horrible worms!!No one can fault you for saving a fish. See my blog if you have any questions about angel and rocks.

yeah, no doubt. this was actually from the guy we trusted, though. when we went in, i said i'd researched it and it wasn't suitable for our tank but he convinced me it was. at this point, we will get nothing more that won't be suitable.
we took the starfish back and got an SPS frag instead. we also now have a fine GIANT fireshrimp that outsizes the CBS and is exploring his new home.Oh dear, I would expect that shrimp to become dinner. Ornamental shrimp are just not safe with cbs. Even though he's bigger, he doesn't have the same kind of equipment to fight with. Anyway, good luck, maybe you'll prove me wrong.

Angel*Fish
07/16/2011, 09:24 PM
To many fish , u want 1 fish for every 10 gallons
I don't know that you can look at it exactly that way, but the points being made about a high load applies to your having that cbs. He's going to eat the good worms ;) and larger pods, a big part what in my opinion is the backbone of your tank's ecosystem (after the beneficial bacteria). You need these animals even more when you are heavily stocked.

Ok, I'll stop picking on the cbs now :lmao: :deadhorse:

dublo8
07/16/2011, 09:53 PM
Check this one out. At least it isn't as big as this one. http://www.absolutereef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10778

papagimp
07/16/2011, 10:06 PM
Check this one out. At least it isn't as big as this one. http://www.absolutereef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10778

now I have to sleep with the lights on tonight... thanks Dublo!
maybe if that dude had walked in a less rythmic pattern he wouldn't have summoned the great shaihalud to his fish tank.