My Mandarin Dragonette is missing....

[LSUtiger]

Hello. I've had my mandarin dragonette for just over a year. He's gone missing the last few days, and I'm assuming the worst since he's never been missing this long. He does like to hide, but I could usually see him in the back.

He was only living off the tank....no prepared foods. I guess my question is if he lived for just over a year in my tank (70gal with 30g sump with fuge), he probably didn't starve, right? There are just as many bugs in the fuge now as there has always been as far as I can tell. He was added 6 months after the tank was set up. The LR in the tank had been in another tank of mine for more than a year.

He has been acting a little differently lately. He started hanging out in the front corner of the tank on the sand instead of his normal usually hidden self among the rocks. I thought he was just finally not scared of me or the kiddos walking by.

I checked the water parameters last Sunday (when I was still seeing him), and everything was in line.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Sk8r]

overflow? If you go after him in there, try a mirror to get a view, and be careful: their body consistency is that of warm jello, and they're hard even to distinguish from the water by touch alone.

 

[LSUtiger]

Well, all it took for me was to post this. After 5 days of hibrnation, I saw him a few minutes ago.

I had checked the overflow, too. I did have a clownfish take that escape route once when a snail propped open the guard over the overflow to let him in. I think they were working together.

Thanks for the reply.

Mark

 

[cubsFAN]

hooray!

 

[carlosR]

Happy for ya, I know it's a bummer when a fish comes up missing. You look all over and then blame the cat or dog for scooping him up before you could.

 

[GiantBen]

Awesome. Glad he turned up

 

[89Foxbody]

Glad you found him. My Hi-Fin Banded Goby went missing for over a week and I thought all hope was lost til I finally saw his little yellow face peering out from under a rock. Never thought I'd get so excited to see a fish. haha.