Fish disappeared and other fish not eating

B

bruindave

New member
I had 2 pink streaked wrasses, 1 pearly jawfish, and 1 helfrichi firefish. 30 gallon tank, about 25 lbs of live rock, 3 inches of sand. ammonia 0, nitrites and nitrates 0.

One of the pink streaked has disappeared and I looked all around the floor (I have a hood), in the overflow, in the rocks (without removing them), looked for a dead fish and can't find anything. I presume the missing wrasse is dead as it's been 6 days since I've seen it. The other pink streak swam with it and sometimes would chase it around a little. didn't think much of it at the time.

Strangely enough... around this time my pearly jawfish who was the first inhabitant of the tank was spooked out of his hole. Started wandering and making new holes in the corner of the tank (where he couldn't really hide very well). I got him to return to his original hole, but it's no longer eating. it will look at food, watch it fall or float in front of it and do nothing. Sometimes it will make an action like it might eat it, then stop.

I have given up the wrasse for dead, but what is happening to the pearly jawfish? The jawfish looks healthy, no dots, no issues with fins or gills as far as i can see. other fish look healthy and are eating fine. any ideas on if these two things have a correlation? what can i do to get him to eat again?
 
How long did you have the tank up and the fish in?

Did you quarantine the fish?

What was the last thing added?
 
Dmorty217 said:
Heavy breathing, erratic swimming? Flashing scratching?
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No heavy breathing, flashing, or erratic swimming that I can see. Looks normal just keeps remaking his burrow now. If anything looks weird it is when the jawfish looks at food, kind of thinks about eating it and then stops. it looks kind of funny, like the jawfish opens and closes it's mouth at the wrong time as if it has no depth perception... haha (this behavior only started this morning). i do know that it doesn't have any issues with it's mouth because it still uses it's mouth to make it's burrow.

ThRoewer said:
How long did you have the tank up and the fish in?

Did you quarantine the fish?

What was the last thing added?
Click to expand...

jawfish has been in the tank for about 6-7 months i believe. I quarantined the jawfish, the helfrichi i did only 4 weeks with TTM and some prazipro. helfrichi has been in the DT for probably 5-6 weeks.

the 2 pink streaked wrasses, i had a hard time with keeping them, so i'll be honest and say I decided to chance it. I only watched them for 2 weeks and then added them. That was about 3 weeks ago.

snorvich said:
And when?
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So the last thing that was added was some SPS coral 2 weeks ago. bayer dipped and then added in. fish-wise it was the 2 pink streaked wrasses 3 weeks ago. the remaining wrasse looks fine and eats well. helfrichi looks fine and eats well.

is it that the new addition of fish is freaking out the jawfish? i have a cleaner shrimp in there as well.
 
In the videos he looks and acts healthy other than the ignoring of the food.
How long has he not eaten yet?

Also the fact that he left his hole may mean that he doesn't like the current spot.
 
ThRoewer said:
In the videos he looks and acts healthy other than the ignoring of the food.
How long has he not eaten yet?

Also the fact that he left his hole may mean that he doesn't like the current spot.
Click to expand...

yea i think he looks healthy too. the other thing i was doing about a week ago was glue some of those frags to the rock. i was above and around his hole then. he completely dug out his hole about 1 week ago then decided to move to the corners after completely digging out his hole. he keeps digging right now b/c he doesn't realize the area he spits is another hole that fills the hole he is trying to dig... hence endless digging.

i have some big bristleworms and spaghetti worms in my tank so i don't know if that matters.

this is not the first time he left his hole, but this is the first time he hasn't eaten in more than 1-2 days. it has been 6 days and tomorrow is 1 week. he's always been the healthiest eater too. no sunken stomach yet.
 
Try feeding with the pumps on. I used to always feed with the pumps off also, and usually it goes fine. But when a fish goes on a hunger strike for unknown reasons, which happens, I will usually feed a little heavier and with the pumps on. Seeing the food moving around can trigger a feeding response, predatory instincts, and then they basically remember to eat again. This literally just happened with my Royal Gramma a couple weeks ago. And now he's back to normal.
 
bat21 said:
Try feeding with the pumps on. I used to always feed with the pumps off also, and usually it goes fine. But when a fish goes on a hunger strike for unknown reasons, which happens, I will usually feed a little heavier and with the pumps on. Seeing the food moving around can trigger a feeding response, predatory instincts, and then they basically remember to eat again. This literally just happened with my Royal Gramma a couple weeks ago. And now he's back to normal.
Click to expand...

he dug out his burrow completely again or it collapsed on itself and his burrow is pretty big again.

i just tried it this morning and it did seem to draw a response to it. he swims up to the food quickly, but then stops. that's a better response, but still not eating... so weird. today is day 7 of it not eating.
 
bruindave said:
he dug out his burrow completely again or it collapsed on itself and his burrow is pretty big again.

i just tried it this morning and it did seem to draw a response to it. he swims up to the food quickly, but then stops. that's a better response, but still not eating... so weird. today is day 7 of it not eating.
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If you have access to live blackworms, then try that (with the pumps off). None of my fish can resist live blackworms. It's like crack to them.
 
Sk8r said:
What's your alkalinity? s/b 7.9-8.3
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so here are all the other numbers... i couldn't do the reading last night since i got home too late.

alk is low at 7.0
mg is at 1260
ca is at 370

what does a low alk do to fish? what can i add?

I can begin to see the fish getting slight sunken belly.
 
Last edited:
as an update, the jawfish ate one pellet. then a second one, but spit it out. i threw in maybe 4-5 other pellets and it tried to eat another and just spit it out again. i also am trying other fresh foods like blended octopus, shrimp, clams, oysters, etc and it almost doesn't pay attention to that at all. the only other note this morning is that there were 2 giant bristleworms right next to his burrow trying to eat the downed pellets.

at this point it's been 9 days. should i take it out and quarantine it? it would just be pretty hard to catch as it is burrowed in the sand and never comes out.

is it that with the quick addition of two fish swimming and shrimp in his area has scared him enough to stop eating? i added two shrimp initially, then 2 weeks later the helfrichi, and last the 2 pink streaked 2 weeks after that. prior to that he had the tank to himself for 4 months.
 
bruindave said:
as an update, the jawfish ate one pellet. then a second one, but spit it out. i threw in maybe 4-5 other pellets and it tried to eat another and just spit it out again. i also am trying other fresh foods like blended octopus, shrimp, clams, oysters, etc and it almost doesn't pay attention to that at all. the only other note this morning is that there were 2 giant bristleworms right next to his burrow trying to eat the downed pellets.

at this point it's been 9 days. should i take it out and quarantine it? it would just be pretty hard to catch as it is burrowed in the sand and never comes out.

is it that with the quick addition of two fish swimming and shrimp in his area has scared him enough to stop eating? i added two shrimp initially, then 2 weeks later the helfrichi, and last the 2 pink streaked 2 weeks after that. prior to that he had the tank to himself for 4 months.
Click to expand...

I would feed mysis or other meaty food such as fish roe not pellets.
 
snorvich said:
I would feed mysis or other meaty food such as fish roe not pellets.
Click to expand...

i can try mysis and brine shrimp tonight as well.

normally i feed a mix of ground up seafood (shrimp, oyster, scallops, etc etc) and/or pellets. He completely ignored the seafood this morning again but went after the pellets.
 
Jawfish that move are sometimes so preoccupied with their construction projects that they forget to be hungry.

I also found that they like to pick the place where they dig their hole even if that is not where you want him to be. Sometimes you need to force them to move away from a dangerous spot, but in general I would let them pick their place on their own.

Another thing is that they are visual fish, so food should ideally look like food.

Finally, sometimes fish get just tired of the daily routine food, so sometimes it helps to change the menu. Live foods often help. My suggestion would be something that swims around: adult brine shrimp, tigger pots, even freshwater daphnia.
 
So my guess now is that the Jawfish was freaked out by the other fish. Mysis shrimp seems to be the go to right now as the fish eats maybe twenty percent of what I'm throwing into the column in front of the burrow. So it is slowly starting to eat again, but as the other fish seam by to get some food the Jawfish started freaking out again Spinning around but no one is picking on it.

Hopefully it returns to normal eating after awhile. It is encouraging to see it eat a tiny bit.
 
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