strange story. Is this common?

[Cozen89]

ok today I woke up and couldn't find my green chromis. All I have in my tank is a oc clown, a tagaroa goby, green chromis, emerald crab, cleaner shrimp, pistil shrimp.

Yesterday I rearranged my rock formations to create a high volcano loking formation so there would be more hiding places. Right as I turned lights out last night I saw my chromis go into a hiding place in the rocks to sleep. Also yesterday I added a farely large pistol about 1 inch long. Kind of a bulky guy. So anyway I wake up today to no chromis. I look and look and after about 20 mins I find him sucked into one of my powerheads. The powerhead has been tehre for quite awhile, so I assumed he was dead before that. I wondered to myself if the emerald got him in his sleep. Maybe he just died, altho he was doing well and chromis are called "bulletproof". Then I wondered to myself if it was the piistol that did it. I couldn't find the pistol, but I saw his big claw on the floor. I couldn't tell if it was a molt ot not. Then I looked in the burrow the pistol was hiding in and I saw the emerald way in there. So I thought maybe the emerald killed both. After 20 mins I saw the little white whisker running rapidly behind a rock so I got up as fast I could to take a look at the pistol. He seemed to be attempting to burrow himself under a rock. As I looked closer it seemed he was attacking and attempting to eat one of my nassarius snails. So I hurried up and grabbed my net to try to separate the two. After netting them both up together, I realize, the snail is attacking the pistol. He is wrapped around it's tail and won't let him go. What's the deal with this? The shrimp is trying it's hardest to break fre but can't. I have them both in a net still. What should I do? And what killed my chromis.

Oh and btw my pistols claw got ripped off. Could the nassarius have killed my chromis too? This is like the game "clue"

 

[xian]

OK I'm going to give this one a shot.

First the Chromis:

Chromis and other damsels are one of those fish that unfortunately don't always get the best treatment from the hobby industry. That means that while they are considered hardy, they sometimes see the worst conditions because of it. Overcrowding, disease, aggression.... When I decided I wanted a small group of chromis in my reef I bought 4. Two disappeared after the first night. I bought three more and two of those disappeared after the first night. I have had the remaining three in two different systems for almost three years now. My feeling about the chromis is that it probably wasn't as healthy as you thought it was.

Crabs:
Any crab, even small ones, can be an opportunistic predator, keep that in mind. I once had a sallylightfoot that actively hunted small fish.

Pistol shrimp
Some pistol shrimp are safe with fish, others are not. What type of pistol shrimp do you have?

Nassarius Snails
Nassarius snails are scavengers and carnivores. That tube you see is for smelling rotting meat. I don't think that a nassarius could injure a pistol shrimp but I wouldn't put it past one to try and take advantage of a wounded one. If your pistol is missing claws that it had previously I vould say you either have a crab or a mantis shrimp in your tank preying on your inhabitants.

 

[Cozen89]

yeah I think it's possible the emerald and the pistol got in a fight. But I did see with my own eyes, my nassarius catch the pistol and eat it as it was still alive. It sucked the tail right off. As for the chromis I don't really know what happened. If it was the pistol, maybe he got what he deserved.

 

[seapug]

my guess-- crab killed the chromis with the candle stick in the rock pile, pistol shrimp used knife to eat chromis in the cave, both got fat and molted, nassarius snail feeds on both while tender.

 

[Cozen89]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9709177#post9709177 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by seapug
my guess-- crab killed the chromis with the candle stick in the rock pile, pistol shrimp used knife to eat chromis in the cave, both got fat and molted, nassarius snail feeds on both while tender.

but what about Colonel Mustard?

 

[xian]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9709169#post9709169 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Cozen89
yeah I think it's possible the emerald and the pistol got in a fight. But I did see with my own eyes, my nassarius catch the pistol and eat it as it was still alive. It sucked the tail right off. As for the chromis I don't really know what happened. If it was the pistol, maybe he got what he deserved.

How big is this snail? It might be some other form of predatory whelk.

 

[Cozen89]

not very large. Including shell it's about the diameter of a nickel.

 

[xian]

Thats pretty big for a nassarius, I've seldom seen them get bigger than a pencil eraser. Got a picture?

 

[hogben]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9709177#post9709177 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by seapug
my guess-- crab killed the chromis with the candle stick in the rock pile, pistol shrimp used knife to eat chromis in the cave, both got fat and molted, nassarius snail feeds on both while tender.

oooh too good :rollface:

 

[arts007]

Same thing happened to me, I had 3 green chromis and all were healthy, as far as I could see, I added a emerald crab and the next day the green chromis was laying on the sand with its guts eaten out. Little disgusting but thats the way I found him. Ive never had a problem before with the crabs, but nature happens.

 

[xian]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9709590#post9709590 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by arts007
Same thing happened to me, I had 3 green chromis and all were healthy, as far as I could see, I added a emerald crab and the next day the green chromis was laying on the sand with its guts eaten out. Little disgusting but thats the way I found him. Ive never had a problem before with the crabs, but nature happens.

I'm going to stick to my two biases:

I still feel that chromis tend to be less than healthy and I don't trust crabs.