Lost half my stock shortly after power outage, rest are hiding :(

Luananeko · Nov 11, 2022

Tank stats:
65g display with 35g fuge/sump volume
Deep sand bed with some softy corals and LOTS of live rock in tank & refugium
Been running for 4 yrs

We had a storm knock out our power for half a day about 2 weeks ago, and even though I had a battery powered air pump in the tank the whole time, it seems to have nuked all my wrasses plus my clown goby

My stocking prior to the outage was:
1 Green Mandarin
1 Firefish
1 Royal Gramma
1 Valentini Puffer (young, only 1.5")
1 Blue spotted jawfish
1 Tiger Watchman Goby
1 Starry Blenny (baby, about 1" long)
1 Carpenter's Flasher Wrasse
1 Golden Rhomboid Fairy Wrasse
1 Exquisite Fairy Wrasse
1 Splendid Pintail Wrasse
1 Green Clown Goby
1 Pincushion Urchin
Lots of Peppermint Shrimp & various snails

Post outage, I know for sure I lost the Flasher and the Green Clown Goby the very next day, and my Golden Rhomboid Wrasse went into permanent hiding. I saw him come out a couple times, but I can't even see his tail in his den for the last week. The Exquisite went into hiding within a few days of the outage, and the Pintail is no where to be found for the last 2 days. Other than the Goby and Flasher, I never found any corpses. They were all kinda hiding a bit even before the outage and I couldn't figure out why... I added the Royal Gramma and Puffer about 4 months ago, and everyone's been hiding more and more since then, despite never seeing the puffer bother anyone, and the only one the Gramma seemed to bother was the Firefish. Firefish is still ok, and comes out most days for dinner, but is otherwise hiding all day, as is the Gramma. The only fish that are out and about seem to be the Jawfish, Blenny, Watchman Goby, and the Mandarin. I run a little high on nitrates (usually around 10-15) since I feed 2-3 times a day for the mandarin and wrasses, plus feed the corals Reef Chili, but otherwise tank stats seem fine (8.4ph, 1.025 salinity, 76F). Other than the outage, I can't figure out what would have caused half my stock to disappear.

In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out where to go from here to restock. I love wrasses, but I don't have the mental bandwidth to manage the personality clashes lately. I'm thinking I'll pick one wrasse, maybe 2 if I go Fairy and Flasher, but I'm not sure what else. Maybe a Sunburst Anthias? I really want something that will constantly be OUT and active, and not hide, without causing issues for the Jawfish since I know TOO active fish can scare them. What would you guys recommend? Thanks!

blaxsun · Nov 11, 2022

The wrasses may yet make a reappearance, but sometimes they do make a trip into the great sand abyss... I've got 7 wrasses in my tank (not including the parrotfish), and they all get along swimmingly (though there were a handful of failed experiments along the way to get there).

Anthias - like chromis - are very active and need to be fed constantly. I have 2 lyretail and 2 marcias in my tank and they always swimming, eating, swimming, eating... So a pellet feeder is recommended for those guys. In terms of other fish recommendations, my cardinals have always been rock solid - pajama and banggai. A small dwarf angel (coral beauty, flame, etc.) could be another choice (just be aware that sometimes they do take after corals).

Lavey29 · Nov 11, 2022

Strange you had such bad luck. They shut my power off for 13 hours some months back and all fish and corals were fine. I ran a battery powered airstone and my back up battery kept my powerheads running low speed but no return pump.

I wish you luck in the recovery phase.

Rick's Reviews · Nov 11, 2022

I'm looking at generators to keep my mum alive. Weird how your fish reacted to /died/just... As you described 'half a day without power' so I'm confused and I don't think I need to follow

Luananeko · Nov 11, 2022

Lavey29 said:
Strange you had such bad luck. They shut my power off for 13 hours some months back and all fish and corals were fine. I ran a battery powered airstone and my back up battery kept my powerheads running low speed but no return pump.

I wish you luck in the recovery phase.

Rick's Reviews said:
I'm looking at generators to keep my mum alive. Weird how your fish reacted to /died/just... As you described 'half a day without power' so I'm confused and I don't think I need to follow

Yeah, I was astonished by how they just died/went into complete hiding after... It's my first power outage that lasted more than a couple hours and I THOUGHT I was prepared for it... Apparently not

Best I can figure is that they all got scared when the pumps all suddenly came back on when the power came back and zoomed/crashed into things. The Flasher had a puffy eye on his corpse, so he looked like he bonked onto something. The other wrasses didn't have any marks on them before going into hiding, so I have no idea what happened to them. All of them were about the same age (I got them all across a 6 month span about 2 years ago, all as adults), if it matters. I'm crossing my fingers that they re-emerge, but if they stay missing for a few more weeks then I'll assume the worst...

I do have a pellet feeder I can set up, just haven't bothered yet since I work from home and it's easy enough to feed them myself the 2-3 times a day I do now.