OK,
So in the last 5 days I've had some disappearances. Current livestock is 1 black molly (hold over from cycling) a pair of ocellaris clowns, a banggai cardinalfish, and a clean up crew with trochus, nassarius, cerith snails and few other snails. I also have a skunk cleaner shrimp a Fire red cherry shrimp, 2 nickel size emerald crabs and 2 quarter size emeralds. The tank is about 98% covered with only the back 2in or so open. One side has the overflow so even less surface area is exposed
Up until 3 days ago I also had a Coral Banded Shrimp for about 2 months. Thur morning he was there, Fri evening, gone. I've never seen anything act aggressively to him. The emeralds don't seem to bother him or anything for that matter, they just go around picking on the rocks all day. He's molted 2x since I've had him and the exoskeleton remains in the tank about a day and a half (same thing for the fire shrimp). If he was attacked, I would think I would have seen a claw or something, but NOTHING. Checked all around the floor, behind the tank...no sign of him.
Last night I added 2 more slightly smaller banggais to the tank (after spending 2 weeks in QT). All looked well. No aggression with the established guy, one of the smaller ones even seemed to pair up with the existing one. Woke up this morning and.....of course. Same thing. Completely disappeared into the abyss. No sign. No fins floating around. No skin. No dried up fish on the carpet. NOTHING. ONLY the 2 smaller ones I added. The original one is in there looking completely fine and normal.
What the heck is going on here? Obviously, there are only two possibilities. They're getting out, or getting eaten right? With the coral banded shrimp, I can only think it would be the emerald crabs get together and actually "hunted" him down? I've never witnessed this and I'm pretty sure that's not their behavior as they are scavengers and opportunistic feeders. The CBS looked fine last I saw him. Had grown back one of his claws to almost regular size. Even still I find it hard to believe they could completely consume the body with no trace in that short time. When any of the shrimp molt, the exoskeleton remains for a couple days. For the fish, ONLY the 2 new ones are gone? They both decided to jump out or were both eaten in a 8hr period? Again I see no bodies anywhere. Nothing. Ugh. FRUSTRATING. What do you guys think actualy happened?
Also for any newbies if you have diamond watchman goby COVER your tank COMPLETELY. Those guys def jump and will find any tiny hole at the top of your 10gal QT tank near the filter and jump out. Eventhough they'll act like they stay only on the bottom and you'll never see them swim higher than the bottom 1/3 of the tank, they'll jump. But they'll land on the carpet and you can easily see what happeed to the't ask me how I know this...
So in the last 5 days I've had some disappearances. Current livestock is 1 black molly (hold over from cycling) a pair of ocellaris clowns, a banggai cardinalfish, and a clean up crew with trochus, nassarius, cerith snails and few other snails. I also have a skunk cleaner shrimp a Fire red cherry shrimp, 2 nickel size emerald crabs and 2 quarter size emeralds. The tank is about 98% covered with only the back 2in or so open. One side has the overflow so even less surface area is exposed
Up until 3 days ago I also had a Coral Banded Shrimp for about 2 months. Thur morning he was there, Fri evening, gone. I've never seen anything act aggressively to him. The emeralds don't seem to bother him or anything for that matter, they just go around picking on the rocks all day. He's molted 2x since I've had him and the exoskeleton remains in the tank about a day and a half (same thing for the fire shrimp). If he was attacked, I would think I would have seen a claw or something, but NOTHING. Checked all around the floor, behind the tank...no sign of him.
Last night I added 2 more slightly smaller banggais to the tank (after spending 2 weeks in QT). All looked well. No aggression with the established guy, one of the smaller ones even seemed to pair up with the existing one. Woke up this morning and.....of course. Same thing. Completely disappeared into the abyss. No sign. No fins floating around. No skin. No dried up fish on the carpet. NOTHING. ONLY the 2 smaller ones I added. The original one is in there looking completely fine and normal.
What the heck is going on here? Obviously, there are only two possibilities. They're getting out, or getting eaten right? With the coral banded shrimp, I can only think it would be the emerald crabs get together and actually "hunted" him down? I've never witnessed this and I'm pretty sure that's not their behavior as they are scavengers and opportunistic feeders. The CBS looked fine last I saw him. Had grown back one of his claws to almost regular size. Even still I find it hard to believe they could completely consume the body with no trace in that short time. When any of the shrimp molt, the exoskeleton remains for a couple days. For the fish, ONLY the 2 new ones are gone? They both decided to jump out or were both eaten in a 8hr period? Again I see no bodies anywhere. Nothing. Ugh. FRUSTRATING. What do you guys think actualy happened?
Also for any newbies if you have diamond watchman goby COVER your tank COMPLETELY. Those guys def jump and will find any tiny hole at the top of your 10gal QT tank near the filter and jump out. Eventhough they'll act like they stay only on the bottom and you'll never see them swim higher than the bottom 1/3 of the tank, they'll jump. But they'll land on the carpet and you can easily see what happeed to the't ask me how I know this...