Do I have a serial killer?

Mark McCarty

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We keep losing one fish at a time in our 45G reef tank to some unknown cause. All fish look healthy and act normal but one will periodically disappear never to be heard from again. We started with a misbar black ocellaris and an orchid dottyback. Both were happy and healthy. We added a bicolor blenny, and he found a favorite hole in our live rock. Seemed good. Never saw him again after two days. No body. Waited a couple of weeks and added a false percula. He acclimated well and is still doing great. Not long thereafter dottyback shows up dead on the sandbed. Waited a couple of weeks and replaced the dottyback with a firefish. He settled right in and is doing fine. Waited a couple of weeks and added a royal gramma. He was fine and healthy for about five days but has now also disappeared from sight completely. What the heck is happening? No signs of disease and we have a perfectly healty false percula, misbar, and firefish that seem to be able to avoid whatever is taking these fish down.

In terms of stocking, we have two cleaner shrimp, turbo snails, nassarius snails, some red and blue leg hermit crabs and an emerald crab. I'm stumped.
 

Crabs McJones

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Mark, Welcome to R2R! Do you have pictures of your setup and pictures of the fish in question? How long has the tank been running and what are your quarantine procedures? Did you start with live rock or dry rock? Thanks :)
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Mark McCarty

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Mark, Welcome to R2R! Do you have pictures of your setup and pictures of the fish in question? How long has the tank been running and what are your quarantine procedures? Did you start with live rock or dry rock? Thanks :)
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Thanks! I'll get pictures tonight. Tank has been up and running for about 4 months. All water parameters are good (we are actually on a service plan so they check levels pretty regularly). All fish were purchased through our service so they do QT and acclimation. Started with live rock and cycled that for a month before adding anything. It seems that fish that like to hide in the rocks at night are the ones disappearing (except for the firefish). The royal had dug a little hole under a ledge and would like to hang out there but started coming out more frequently right before he disappeared. The false percula started hanging out in front of his cave and has now started to host there. Dottyback also liked to hide in the rocks. It seems like fish that stay in the water column most of the day fare better.
 
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Mark McCarty

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Survivors are false percula, misbar ocellaris, and firefish. All healthy and doing fine. Tank is fine. Going through the ugly phase with a little bit of algae on sandbed but otherwise fine. Parameters all fine. In terms of coral, have fiji leather, spaghetti leather, plate coral, brain coral, trumpet frags, a few frogspawn frags, small zoas, ricordea, small acropora frag and montipora frag. All seem to be doing fine.
 

ca1ore

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I think the most likely explanation, particularly for new fish, is that they just died and got reduced. No observable disease does not mean no disease. It's possible, I suppose, that there's some kind of lurking assassin; but I think it generally unlikely. It's a popular 'explanation' because at least then there is something to blame.
 
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Mark McCarty

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I think the most likely explanation, particularly for new fish, is that they just died and got reduced. No observable disease does not mean no disease. It's possible, I suppose, that there's some kind of lurking assassin; but I think it generally unlikely. It's a popular 'explanation' because at least then there is something to blame.
That's what I though but the sequencing was hard to make sense of. Blenny and royal were both new additions so could be stress-induced. Royal lasted longer than blenny. But the orchid was an original addition and had been fine for a month or more.
 

Nelson Vargas

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I strongly agree with @ca1ore def check where your are buying your fish from. Also maybe trying a quarantine routine will help. There’s a lot of ivertebrates that will eat up fish in a matter of hours but only sickly ones. So yea that sounds about right. If your Params are good and corals are fine then I def will blame it on disease.
 

Dom

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We keep losing one fish at a time in our 45G reef tank to some unknown cause. All fish look healthy and act normal but one will periodically disappear never to be heard from again. We started with a misbar black ocellaris and an orchid dottyback. Both were happy and healthy. We added a bicolor blenny, and he found a favorite hole in our live rock. Seemed good. Never saw him again after two days. No body. Waited a couple of weeks and added a false percula. He acclimated well and is still doing great. Not long thereafter dottyback shows up dead on the sandbed. Waited a couple of weeks and replaced the dottyback with a firefish. He settled right in and is doing fine. Waited a couple of weeks and added a royal gramma. He was fine and healthy for about five days but has now also disappeared from sight completely. What the heck is happening? No signs of disease and we have a perfectly healty false percula, misbar, and firefish that seem to be able to avoid whatever is taking these fish down.

In terms of stocking, we have two cleaner shrimp, turbo snails, nassarius snails, some red and blue leg hermit crabs and an emerald crab. I'm stumped.


Any strange sounds coming from the tank at night when the lights are out? Maybe a clicking noise? Add any new rock to the tank? Maybe a mantis shrimp hitchhiker?
 

vetteguy53081

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Have a member of a club I belong to that discovered a Mantis shrimp with it being a culprit in a similar situation. If you are hearing weird clicks from tank, you may have one. Other possibilities are crabs which are nocturnal or Fireworm or Xl bristleworm. Sift your gravel with a rod to see if anything unusual in form of life pops out of gravel.
 

vetteguy53081

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Have a member of a club I belong to that discovered a Mantis shrimp with it being a culprit in a similar situation. If you are hearing weird clicks from tank, you may have one. Other possibilities are crabs which are nocturnal or Fireworm or Xl bristleworm. Sift your gravel with a rod to see if anything unusual in form of life pops out of gravel.
 

Forsaken77

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I bet it's that darned emerald crab. Any fish that will sleep by the bottom of the tank can be vulnerable to it. I had one that would snap at fish as they swam past. Then I caught the.... bugger.... with a live fish in his claws running away with it. Needless to say, he didn't have much of a life expectancy after that.

Some are ok, some are wolf in sheeps clothing.
 

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