1 fish dead, 1 fish missing
 

Woke up this morning to find my flame hawkfish completely mangled up and my royal gramma is missing. I have a couple fairly large hermits so I think they may have gotten a hold of Marvin (flame hawk). He was fine yesterday.....Not sure about the RG.....

So frustrating. Everyone else is fine. :twised::twised::twised:

oh man sorry to hear that....

Also missing a clownfish. Here's hoping they are just hiding.......

Had a rogue emerald crab that took out 4 masked gobies! Crabs r opportunists... Feel for ya

I had my first death in tank yesterday - a yellow tang. He was bullied to death I guess after introduction. He was in the corner for a few days, as where I found him.

I'm also missing my second banana wrasse, the first one jumped out a few weeks ago, now I can't find the other one! :|

Sorry to hear, Coralgurl!

Thanks

I don't know if the hermits would catch fish and eat them. My flamehawk fish - took a hard look to figure out which fish it was as there was nothing really left of him. All his scales were gone on his body and it was very fleshy stringy bits left. But his face was intact.

Very sorry to hear of your losses.

I hate losing fish and I have no idea why or what happened. I'm hoping the RG and clown were just not quite awake yet, but it was a late start to the morning...... will take a look at things tonight when I get home.

I had a red crab at one point that I wasn't able to identify. I'm pretty sure he stayed in my 55 gl tank as there appeared to be recent moltings left in that tank when I sold the rock. I have not seen another crab since, most of the rock in my tank sat dry until I got it up and running. I did add a few additional pieces that came from other reefers. So weird.....

Unless you find your missing fish the problem is likely a lack of oxygen event that caused some of your fish to die.
Alternatively, you can be experiencing a cycle. You should check your parameters.
Alternatively, you may have had a temperature spike.

It is doubtful that anything in your tank attacked, killed and ate two fish and killed and partially ate the other in one evening.

My experience is crabs will eat dead fish or injured not moving fish.

The only other inverts fast enough to catch fish is mantis.

If you haven't added any new livestock recently then it's possible that they didn't die from a disease. It is really weird that the fish would just die overnight tho... And if your other fish are Mia that's even more unexplainable.

I have had fish for a year or 2 then slowly get more and mood skinny almost anorexic then eventually die. Recently I bought a few new fish and mysteriously they stopped then 2 days later dead. Only the new fish passed while the rest are completely fine.

Sorry for your losses!

Unless you find your missing fish the problem is likely a lack of oxygen event that caused some of your fish to die. Interesting... this may seem like a dumb question, but how would I check this? I have my returns pointed at the water surface and 4 powerheads, all working.
Alternatively, you can be experiencing a cycle. You should check your parameters. Will check when I get home.
Alternatively, you may have had a temperature spike. Possible - wouldn't this affect more fish? I unplugged my heaters before I left the house this morning simply because its supposed to be fairly warm today. My tank has been hovering around 81.5 over the summer.

It is doubtful that anything in your tank attacked, killed and ate two fish and killed and partially ate the other in one evening.Well it is Shark Week........[/quote]

I did add 2 fish a few weeks ago, 2 wrasses - both are active have not been either bullied or bullies in the tank. I'll check out the tank thoroughly when I get home, testing etc. The fish were fine yesterday, I know for sure I saw the RG and clown on Monday as I was away last week and I always check for everyone. I'm don't recall seeing them yesterday, but I did see the hawkfish as he came over to the side of the tank when I was fiddling with my skimmer and overflow. He was perfectly fine and behaving normally. I should have taken a picture before I flushed him as I was shocked at how messed up he was - but any of the CUC could have gotten to him. He was floating by the top of the overflow when I saw him.

How would I check for a mantis? I had a Scott's wrasse that had a pretty messed up side, thought he scrapped himself on the rocks. I was going to catch him and put him in my sump, but he died before I could get at him. Would it be possible for a mantis to go so long without detection?

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On the oxygen and temperature and even ammonia issues different fish react differently. Some will die immediately others will hang in there enough to allow you to oxygenate the water or to correct the problem That is why some are still alive.

81.5 is not a problem at all but while you were out if it spiked to 84 or 85 it could be a cause of the problem. Opening the doors to the sump area and a cheap $29.00 pedestal fan will really help.

There are oxygen test kits but I have never used them.
All I know is that if you have mulitple fish deaths in one day it is often lack of oxygen, a serious ammonia spike, or overheating that is the likely problem.

I will post my findings when I get home! Thanks for the advice!

I highly doubt your hermits did this.

Sometimes crap happens that can kill fish. I don't know your system or your habits, but it's usually tank owner caused.

Hate to say missing = dead 99.9% of the time.

Better test your water. Do a water change.

Ammonia is 0 on salifert test. It's at 1 on the API test. Water is mixing, will do a change in an hour or so.

The royal gramma came out 5 mins ago so it's just the clown and hawkfish.

I've had an issue with my skimmer, had a snail caught in the intake. I took it apart, cleaned it but it wouldn't stop over flowing, so I left the plug out and just let it run. It finally stopped last night. I do use filter socks and kept them on during this time. Checked the flow on the return pump, it was reduced, the intake was clogged with cheato, cleaned off and it's running fine.

Last water change was 2 weeks ago before I left on holidays. Tank was looked after while I was away, as the weather was cool, was not worried about the temps. Top ups done and fish were fed.

I'm not sure what I could have done or not done to cause these deaths :sad:

I have lost a few smaller fish in the past year and it was not until I turned off all the power and started using a flashlight the last time that I found the remains of one in the powerhead ... since then I have seen a couple of the smaller ones swimming into the chamber of the powerhead while it was off-cycle and I have begun to wonder if I have depressed (or potentially hard-of-thinking) fish ...

Charles