New fishes disappearing!!

I

ISeaReef

New member
Please help solve this X-File mystery in my tank: my new fishes are disappearing every night. Here's the story:

I have a 150gal reef tank setup about 4 months ago and I have 2 clown fishes, 1 yellow tang, cuc, 2 cleaner shrimps, 2 peppermint shrimps and a few corals (frogspawn, sun coral, star polyps, some sps and zoas). Everything have been in the tank for more than a month or two and looking happy, eating and growing. So, couple weeks ago on Sunday, I added 5 blue green chromis and 1 royal gramma to my tank.

Monday: everyone was out swimming around and eating.
Tuesday: one of the chromis went missing. I figured he/she must be hiding in the rocks because I can see the royal gramma found a nice a little cave to hide in.
Wednesday: now the rg is nowhere to be found.
Thursday: came home from work and I can only see 2 chromis left swimming around. This is starting to freak the wifee out. She loves to stare at the tank as much as I do. I started to search every nook and crannies hoping to find an underground party in the rocks but can't see any MIA anywhere.
Friday: one more chromis gone and one left. this time the wife did see a cleaner shrimp enjoying the dead chromis. it was gone when I got home from work. Can a skunk cleaner shrimp kill my new fishes?
Saturday: all new fishes are MIA and my tank is like going back to the future 2 weeks ago.

Now the wife will not let me add any more fish worrying the same outcome. :debi: What can I do?
 
The skunk cleaner would not do that. Let's talk about your live rock - where did you get it from? Before that, do you know where it came from? My first thought is you most likely have a predatory crab that was in your live rock, its grown and can now catch fish.
 
KMP said:
The skunk cleaner would not do that. Let's talk about your live rock - where did you get it from? Before that, do you know where it came from? My first thought is you most likely have a predatory crab that was in your live rock, its grown and can now catch fish.
Click to expand...

+1

Other possibilities include being harrassed to death by clowns.

Also, what acclimation procedure did u use to get them in the tank?

Parameters?
 
sorry to steal your post, but i had the same problem. a 3' scopas tangs, gone..nowhere in sight. only two shrimps was with it at that time. since its disappearance, i added two clowns and an angel...they're ok. mystery unsolved. this was several months ago.
 
I have a fish that has been MIA for a month. Last week i reworked my rock scape and found him hiding.

Went back to hiding and havent seen it since.

If sometging was eating them wouldnt there be some scales/fins/chunks around?
 
Chromis disappear. It's what they do. They kill off the weakest one and continue the cycle, often leaving you with one or two. They're dead somewhere, or picked apart and eaten upon their deaths. Same with Anthias. Occasionally there is an exception, but I'd consider that normal.

Remember that big fish eat little fish, a concept commonly taught in grade school. You don't have to find remains for them to have died and been eaten.
 
RonMidtownStomp said:
Chromis disappear. It's what they do. They kill off the weakest one and continue the cycle, often leaving you with one or two. They're dead somewhere, or picked apart and eaten upon their deaths. Same with Anthias. Occasionally there is an exception, but I'd consider that normal.

Remember that big fish eat little fish, a concept commonly taught in grade school. You don't have to find remains for them to have died and been eaten.
Click to expand...

:hmm2:
 
I'm not making stuff up. I've had at least two fish store owners tell me that's the trend with anthias and chromis, and at least 3 other hobbiests. I had 7 chromis once and had 1 a month later. They disappeared one at a time. I've had that happen with at least 2 batches of anthias.
 
RonMidtownStomp said:
I'm not making stuff up. I've had at least two fish store owners tell me that's the trend with anthias and chromis, and at least 3 other hobbiests. I had 7 chromis once and had 1 a month later. They disappeared one at a time. I've had that happen with at least 2 batches of anthias.
Click to expand...


Agree, I've been able to sustain 3 of 7 chromis for the last few months. I recently purchased 3 purple anthias and only 1 remains. I plan on buying more anthias, but think I'm going to try just 1 of each v. 3-5 of each. I'm curious to see if they will fight with other types.
 
Also could be just weak fish and they are not aclimating to your system ?

I will add Chromis and Anthias dont have the best track records
 
Thanks for all the suggestions and comments. I wish I can see what's killing the fishes so I can deal with it. I just don't understand why my 2 clowns and yellow tang are spared while the new ones all disappeared. I always thought chromis are very hardy because every tank I've seen have them. I see there are a few people with similar situation as mine so there's still a lot to learn in this hobby.
 
Chromis are definitely not hardy. Just Google "Chromis Death" and almost every link on the first page of Google is to a thread almost exactly like this one. Someone is asking where their chromis went. I don't need to read the threads to know the answer. They're weak fish and the stronger in the group kill the weakest ones.
 
And as for finding the body of a fish that died in a reef system, good luck with that. That is what the clean up crew is for and when it comes to cleaning up a dead body, they are very good at it. We too have tried schools of chromis and always end up with either 1 or none in the end. I dont think we have ever found a body.
 
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