Hidden adult hippo tang

[marcusbacus]

The big question here is... for how long an adult tang, healthy and adapted to the tank can be hiding without any sign of his presence? Now, to the story:

I was feeding my fish and suddenly some of them (about 3 fish I think) jumped about 10cm out of the water at once to catch some food (why?), something they had never done before. My hippo tang is missing since that. And it's been almost 2 months. I saw them all jumping and falling down back in the water, and it was all back to normal except for the tang which is missing since. I didn't see him in the tank right after the jump, but as he usually hides temporarily when a bit scared I didn't bother, he probably was really scared this time so I didn't bother. He didn't jump out of the tank (I saw them all falling back in), or else he would be easily found (there are no other animals like dogs or cats here).

The detail is that he is/was an adult (17cm I guess), have been here for over 2 years (bought it from some other local reefer that was disassembling his tank), never had ich (here at least), never hid for more than a few minutes or just to sleep at night (but was always visible even between rocks), always ate like a pig, never attacked any fish or coral or was attacked... so he's not being "shy" or "adapting to a new tank" or anything, he just *poof*.

I'm guessing that he got seriously scared for some reason and is (if still alive) hiding somewhere under the rocks and is safely eating whatever he can find, unfortunately the rocks can't be removed without dismantling the whole thing to check. I had an engineer goby until a month earlier of this episode that had made a lot of caves everywhere under all the rocks, I'm not sure if he did large enough caves to a tang to fit in there easily. I am not sure if they can bury themselves when scared like wrasses, but even with all these possibilities, I have never heard of this kind of fish (adult, adapted, healthy) being missing for 2 months like this. Could this happen for that long? With the large amount of foods he ate, I would guess that he would be at least hungry enough to go after some food.

I think he's not dead because or he would probably have floated by now and/or the water would have had some kind of signal of this happening (smell, amonia). I don't think I have enough cleaning crew to get rid of it that easily, some kind of corpse/carcass should have appeared. He didn't jump either, I saw him falling back as I said and probably there would have been some smell in the room.

What is interesting is that after this episode, a yellow neon goby that also disappeared for a long time (over 6 months) reappeared out of nowhere so I am guessing there are some nice hideouts made by the engineer...

 

[arowana429]

Interesting...I highly doubt an open water swimmer like a tang stays hiding for 2 months. May be he got spooked and got stuck in the rockwork. How big is your tank?

 

[TheAquariumBlog]

If your tank is pretty large, which sounds like it is, it definitely is possible for fish to disappear for days and then come back out. Months...idk but possible I guess. There was a group of 4 hippo tangs I kept for a long time, all adults, and randomly they would decide to pick on the smallest and so he would hide in the same hole in the rock and only come out far enough to catch scraps. Is it possible yours found a good hole in the rock somewhere to hide in all the time? You can use your phone or flashlight to look at night which might help with the contrast. If you can't find him or see him I would guess that he did die and just got eaten up...I've seen that happen pretty fast sometimes even without too much of a cleaner crew. Good luck Hope that helps!

 

[PirateToast]

I don't have very high hopes for your tang unfortunately. Even a spooked hippo tang will come out occasionally to eat and swim when things settle down. They simply aren't a fish that disappears for more than a couple days.

I'd guess he jumped out at that moment and you missed it or another time. The other possibility is it passed and your cuc took care of him under a rock or something.

 

[marcusbacus]

I'm afraid that he's gone as well although I'm sure that the biggest cave under the rocks done by the engineer was around that place so there is still 1% hope... I just wanted to know if there was some episode of them hiding for so long like this (well this neon goby was missing for 6 months, but he's tiny). I would think that if he was really stuck he would at least make some bumping noises or something trying to release himself, but nothing happened immediately (or ever) after the incident. I have a clown wrasse that seems to hide at night closer to the place where he probably disappeared, and with the digging he would probably be disturbed or something but nothing happened as well. Interesting to notice is that if he really died there was no change in the water quality or any noticeable smell or other signs like maybe the skimmer working a little more than usual (which with a large fish would really happen, and fast I think).

Thinking back, I actually had 2 relatively recent episodes of "missing fish" like this that had the fish coming back after a long time, the little neon goby and one black ocellaris that I thought was dead ages ago (3 months at least), that suddenly reappeared out of nowhere as well (but also after the engineer goby was gone, so there's some pattern here). Both reappeared a little thinner but all were healthy and went back to normal.

I've seen him sleep in pretty narrow places between rocks and "play dead" many times at night, but I've never seen him hide for a whole day or something. I'd think that he would be able to get out of the supposed cave he would be in easily just swimming backwards or something but... they can be dumb sometimes... my sister had a beagle that had some sort of neurological disease and wasn't walking for a long time, then she recovered unexpectedly on her own and was normal, apparently... but after that whenever she went say under a table or under a chair, she couldn't get out of it because she somehow forgot how to walk backwards and used to go mad howling until someone set her free. Once she went for a walk in my sister's country house and disappeared, probably went under some bush and couldn't get out.

The only possible place that he could have gone without being easily visible (if I wasn't so sure that I had seen him fall back in the water) was at the back of the tank (a 10cm space between the tank and the wall), but I even filmed it to help me see it in details and find him if he was there, but there was nothing. All the other places around the tank are clear and easy to spot a missing fish that jumped (had a couple in around 4 years with this tank).

The tank is actually very small for a hippo tang (I know, I know, but it's not the point of my post and this wasn't what caused his death, was it?), 250L, but he was always healthy, never had any problems in over 2 years with me (considering that he possibly lived in a larger tank before) and had as many room for swimming as I possible could give him.

 

[anbosu]

I've had small fish and sand dwelling wrasses disappear for extended periods of time, but never a larger fish like an adult hippo tang. I would guess he's dead.

 

[scooter31707]

He's dead and the CUC disposed of the body.