Missing Jawfish! Need help!!

[ahill3780]

I noticed that my Jawfish did not come out for his regular feeding two days ago. I didn't think much of it at the time and the same for the next day.

Today I decided to look either for him hiding under a rock, or at the least his burrow. He has been content to hide under rocks instead of burrowing to this point.

I lifted each piece of LR in the tank so that I could examine underneath and around it. I did not find him anywhere under or inside of the rocks, nor did I find any burrows. I looked everywhere around the tank and it's stand, but he is not dried up on the carpet anywhere. And finally, there are no predators or anemones in the tank that could have eaten him. None of my filtration equipment has an inlet large of enough for him to have gotten sucked into either.

My only thought is that he started to burrow and something may have caused the burrow to cave in.

What can I do? Is there some way for me to find and rescue him if he is trapped underneath the sand?? If he is, how long could he survive in there before rescued??

 

[EdKruzel]

After three days in a mature tank he is gone and the fauna and bacteria have dismantled the carcass.

Too bad,
Ed

 

[clown2be]

Have you ever heard of a mantis shrimp? They are great at doing magic tricks with fish. Well maybe not so good, they can make fish disappear and never been able to make them reappear.

 

[ahill3780]

Hmm, well I don't have any shrimp, so that puts paid to that idea.. and I am skeptical about the possibility that he could have been devoured in two days, wouldn't I have registered any kind of spike in my params?

 

[jgoodrich71]

My bet is that he did jump out and got somewhere where you can't see him. They are notorious jumpers.

Every time I move a tank, I usually find one escapee that I thought had just "disappeared".

 

[EdKruzel]

A tiny fish like a jawfish in a 55 with bacteria, pods and worms will dismantle a much larger fish in just over 24-48hrs with no noticable water quality issues.
If that were the case, every time you fed would cause problems.

Second clue is your suspicion that it was trapped under the sand; being hidden in an anaerobic zone will assist the decay even faster and without the possibility of your observation.

If it's not hidding in a hole or crevice of the rock then it has unfortunately passed.

Ed

 

[szwab]

it's possible he's in a piece of LR but if you have searched and haven't seen him for a few days more than likely he has "become part of the tank"