Disappearing anthias

[Bthomas]

Can a fish just dissappear without a trace?

I added 3 lyretail anthias to my dt a little over a week ago. One of them was acting very shy for the first couple days, always hiding in the rock work, but then after a couple days it started to come out regularly and was swimming around more but would still go back and hide in its rock every once in awhile but seemed to be doing fine. Now it has completely disappeared..
I would think even if it had died I would see some sign of it. I even checked on the floor behind the tank and in the overflows.. Nothing.

 

[Ron Reefman]

The simple answer is, 'Yes!'

How? I'm not sure. But over my 15 years and multiple tanks, I've had more than a few fish and other critters just 'disappear', both new to the tank and after being in the tank for months. I had a large (12" long) engineer goby disappear from a 55g tank with very few other things in the tank. About 2 years later I found it under a cabinet more than 15 feet away from the tank. The really weird part is it never made any smell and my wife has a very sensitive nose. She can come home 2 hours after I've finished cleaning out my skimmer and she'll ask why the house smells like a Florida Keys beach covered in sea weed at low tide!

Have you tested for ammonia since it went missing?

 

[nereefpat]

Can a fish just dissappear without a trace?

That's how clean up crews make a living.
Crabs, shrimp, and especially (larger, like brittle) starfish are really good at it.

Sounds like the other lyretails were, perhaps, pestering it.

 

[saintsreturn]

As Ron stated, yes. Always frustrating and sometimes surprising. I have had Anthias jump before and if you have pets, this means you may never even know it. My last two jumpers went behind my system so i found the evidence. I had a purple goby just disappear one day with no signs of issues. Found its spine when i moved my frag rack.

Lots of others just left without a trace. One a good note, i have had a couple show back up randomly as well. When i used to overfeed, they would not come out to eat because the food was going to them.

 

[shred5]

Anthias can hide in the rock for a while. They can be very shy.

The one issue is lyretails is they can be hard to keep in groups.. They will kill the smallest or weakest one first and then work there way up. It happens allot with them.

Even if you just got them and saw no aggression yet the shy one may have been picked on prior and it may hide for a while.

I once had a assessor that hid from me for over a month. Never saw it it all all I figured dead for sure and then one day saw him dart out for some food..

I also agree with Ron if you do not have a top it may have jumped especially being skittish. I have lost fish and several years latter moved a tank and found the fish..

 

[Mariette]

Ab

Can a fish just dissappear without a trace?

I added 3 lyretail anthias to my dt a little over a week ago. One of them was acting very shy for the first couple days, always hiding in the rock work, but then after a couple days it started to come out regularly and was swimming around more but would still go back and hide in its rock every once in awhile but seemed to be doing fine. Now it has completely disappeared..
I would think even if it had died I would see some sign of it. I even checked on the floor behind the tank and in the overflows.. Nothing.

Absolutely. It means you have a good clean up crew :)

 

[Bthomas]

It's just odd cause they seemed to all be doing OK, didn't think it was at risk of dieing..
I never saw any aggression and it's a pretty large tank, 150 gallons, so they had room to get away from each other. They lived in a 20 gallon quarantine together with no issues for a month so I don't think it would succumb to aggression that quick.
I have a canopy over the tank so the only part open is the back, if it had jumped it would be back there.
I havnt checked ammonia but with the size of the tank I don't think one dead anthias would affect it much.

I guess I'm going to need to get more anthias now since 2 is not a good number with them.. :(