Glad to hear you found him. I had an experience a few months ago when I was selling off my LR after I downsized the 300g.
After taking everything out of the main tank and putting what I thought was just LR into tubs, I noticed my Royal Gramma was missing and I gave up hope of finding it after several weeks. Well, as luck would have it, I had someone stop by to pick up all of the rock, which afterwards was left a 20g trashcan in my garage with a few pieces of LR rubble and maybe a 1/2-3/4" of water.
The next afternoon I was cleaning the garage and my wife came out to help. She was about to dump out the remaining water in the trashcan, when she screamed and found the RG still alive!!! Barely breathing at the time, but still alive!!! Remarkable, considering it spent at least 12 hours in minimal water where the ambient temperature fluctuated from the mid-80's down to the mid-50's without any water movement and without any feedings for several weeks.
I grabbed a net and dumped it straight into the 65g where it was really stressed out for a few weeks but is back to its old personality now and holds its own against the rest of the tank.
