2 losses in 4 days

[techigirl78]

Well, today is a bad day. On Wednesday, it appeared my fish feasted on my new crocea clam as it appeared to have been gutted. Today, I found my mystery wrasse with no fins left. It seems awkward as all my fish appeared to be getting along fine, but something appears to went after him. Last night he was eating fine with no problems and swimming around like usual. The power went out on the tank for about 1/2 hour after lights out, but the temp remained constant during that time. Nonetheless, this hobby has been anything but fun this week. I'm thinking I should just take the remaining 3 fish and 2 serpent stars into the LFS and start over.

 

[techigirl78]

Well, I checked my fish out again. Only part of his tail fin was gone, but the rest of him seemed fine. Would that cause a fish to die. I tried telling my fiance' that the power going out for 1/2 hour to and hour probably caused some problems, but he says it wouldn't. Would loss of circulation for this amount of time cause a problem?

 

[Russian123]

From my understanding if the tail and fins are the only thing on the fish the will be fine or they will regrow, either way im pretty sure he'll be ok.

 

[techigirl78]

Thanks, but I found the fish dead. I was just wondering if the power outage caused it or a fight. As all the fish got along good and this happened sometime after the power outage and before the lights had been on long in the morning, I'm thinking the power outage did it. The other wrasse was nipping on his tail when I found him, which may have caused the damage.

Its just really heartbreaking as he was my favorite fish and the only one to date that I actually named. It'll likely be a long time before I have enough money or luck in finding a similar little fish. My fiance' does now seem to understand that any power outage for the tank is bad, so hopefully we can work on preventing them in the future. There was a small ammonia spike and a water change is in progress to ensure the other fish are ok.

 

[Blown 346]

The power going out for even 2 hours wont cause a fish to die unless the water drops temp really fast and gets below 70. The fish will acclimate to the water temp going down since that happens slowly.
He was being picked on by something, and if under enough stress could die just from that.
I have never heard of a fish dying because the power went out for 30 minutes to a hour.

 

[dugg]

I would be looking at the serpant stars. I had one in my tank for over 6 years that suddenly started eating fish. Either that or use a red light at 3 or 4 in the morning, and search for a large crab. I would almost bet it's one or both of the stars that did it.

 

[aquawolf]

The small ammonia spike may have been caused by the death of crocea clam and the little fish may not have been able to deal with it. More than likely the damage to the tail came after death as you stated when the wrasse was nipping on him.

I am sorry for your losses as it always sucks to lose any of the critters in your tank. Once the water change is done I would give it a few days without feeding the fish to let all of your parameters stabilize again. Then, hopefully, it will be back to life as usual even though you will no longer have that particular tank mate.

Good luck and don't give up just yet. You found a problem with the ammonia so work through that and see how it turns out.

 

[techigirl78]

When the clam died, there was no ammonia spike. I tested the water after finding the fish and then I saw the ammonia spike.

I guess I'll point my finger at the serpent star and try to catch both of them and send them to the refugium. I haven't seen any other hitchhikers. I removed the stars from my 125 as I was nervous with them and my small gobies. Guess I should of thought about it when I added the 2-3" wrasse.

Thanks for all the responses.

 

[rochestertank]

i'm pretty new to this but isn't it natural for fish and other living things to eat other fish and living things? i only have one of my fish named but have lost some other fish (one was named too) and so on so i know loss from my perspective and it's something you get over. it's just a way to look at things. also, with my tank i try not to do anything that will kill the life in there unnaturally (like have bad ph/ ammonia/ etc. levels) and I personally try not to get marine animals that will kill the other marine animals but if/ when they die it's just a part of the process? no idea if that helps...

 

[techigirl78]

Yeah, it does help to a point. I haven't lost a fish for about 1.5 years, so its been awhile. I took a chance on a more expensive fish and that is the one that died. All my levels were stable up until the fish death. The fish was a long time from its natural death as it didn't even have the male markings yet. Next year at raise time I hope to try another one, as they are awesome little fish.