Royally Stuck

[71Percent]

Just wondering if I made a terrible mistake. We just got a royal gramma a week ago and I noticed that it was missing all day yesterday. At the nightly feeding, it was still a no show, which got me concerned for obvious reasons. After the lights went out, I checked with a flashlight and saw the top of her head just inside a hole in our live rock. Right next to the hole was some sort of stinging coral that came with the live rock. Anyways, she was pretty wedged in there it seemed. I panicked as there was no way she could get the rest of the way through the hole, so I pushed her back through to the other side as gently as I could. She swam a little bit around, but looked very unstable. She moved to another bigger cave and I felt better. I checked about 10 minutes later and she was on the bottom where the live rock meets the sand. Just then a white tinny star tentacle reached out and grabbed her and tried to pull her under the rock. She reacted and swam away. I netted her and put her in the refugium, but it was too late and she died shortly after. Should I have just let her stay in the rockwork? Can they get themselves stuck to the point of not being able to back up?

 

[Rutrag]

I can't say I've had that experience with a royal gramma, but I lost a Midas blenny who got himself stuck in the grate of a Korallia Evo circulation pump. I turned off the pump and even removed the grate, but he couldn't get out until I pried the bars a little further apart. He lasted for maybe 8 hours after being freed. You'd think Mother Nature would have given them the sense to figure out how small or big of a hole they can get in and out of, but it's obviously not the case all the time.

 

[71Percent]

Thanks for the info. The gramma had a similar type incident a few days before when she swam into a power head that I turned off during a feeding. The power head is on an auto-timer, so I raced to scare her out of it, but I was too late. It turned on and she went flying out. She seemed fine for a few days, but maybe she sustained some injuries...

 

[ShipWreck2]

I would say the damage was done in the power head and just took a couple days to die.

IMO A healthy fish won't get stuck in a normal rock cave.

 

[71Percent]

Makes me feel better...

 

[snorvich]

Makes me feel better...

Except, of course, what was the animal that tried to grab her? If it likes to eat fish, it needs to be removed.

 

[71Percent]

One of those tiny white starfish you see sticking out from under all the rocks. Strong guys and everywhere. It would be a war! But I think they're great at cleaning.

 

[JackandJill]

Except, of course, what was the animal that tried to grab her? If it likes to eat fish, it needs to be removed.

That's what I was thinking. Got to that part of the post and envisioned your tank as a horror movie set. Something waiting to kill you around every corner.