Serial Killer on the loose!

Squirrel_reefer

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I've been losing some fish lately to and I believe I found the suspect....

It all started last week when I noticed one of my two yellow tailed blue Damsels had a wound to his tail. I originally placed the two Damsels in the tank as cycling fish and I decided to let them stay awhile and enjoy my new 55g tank.

One morning while checking in on the fishies I noticed that his wound had gotten worse and about 80% of his tail had been eaten off :( I had seen the other Damsel nipping at him but I wrote it off as a territorial dispute. I watched him struggle to swim around and finally I made the choice to flush him rather than see him suffer. The prime suspect was the other blue Damsel.

Now about a week later (today), I found my purple firefish dead in the sand bed! massive chunk out of his tail. Needless to say I was quite upset, as he was my favorite. I hadnt seen him in the water column for a few days. However i added a yellow tang to the group about the same time and i figured his large body size had intimidated the purple firefish into hiding. Here's the damage to the Purple...

P1011213.jpg

P1011215.jpg


Now these deaths have sparked my thinking on another controversial disappearance...my small wheeler goby, in the interim of all this chaos my wheeler goby was MIA for about a week. one day I found him in my overflow box! (scary, but I have a glass lid) he was very small but not very frightened of other livestock. I tossed him back in the tank and havent seen him since. Now I wrote off his disappearance, figuring he jumped out of the tank and wound up in my cats mouth. now.... im not so certain.

Here's a list of live stock in my tank:
Regal tang
Yellow tang
Flame hawk
Blue Damsel

Electric blue hermit
Halloween Hermit
2 scarlets
(none big enough to eat a fish IMO)

All my rock work was dry rock, and I have not added any live rock to the system and I put in 3 frags, a GSP and 2 xenia, all properly QT'd so Im 99.99% sure its not a hitchhiking predator
 

Scottsquatch

Third times a charm?
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I would guess the hermits are the culprits, but I am by no means an expert. However, I did have some small hermits take down a small clown in my 5 gal nano. The only thing I can figure is that they somehow got him at night. Also, I have not had much experience with hawk fish, but I have heard that some of them can be nasty.
 

Jlobes

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I would guess the hermits are the culprits, but I am by no means an expert. However, I did have some small hermits take down a small clown in my 5 gal nano. The only thing I can figure is that they somehow got him at night. Also, I have not had much experience with hawk fish, but I have heard that some of them can be nasty.

no way. if your hermits were feasting on a clown, then id guess that clown already died and they were feasting on a corpse...
 

Lionfish Lair

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Wow! What is up with this lately! I'm tagging along to see what materializes.

Just an FYI, flushing a live fish may not be the best option for the fish. Clove oil is one of the best ways available to hobbyists to put a fish down and it's easy to find and use.
 

Scottsquatch

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That was my first thought, but the clown was so robust and healthy. Anyway, as I stated...I'm no expert. obviously with dry rock it can't be a hitch hiker. I'll just move outta the way and let the experienced folks figure it out. Good luck. I hope you don't lose anything else.
 
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Squirrel_reefer

Squirrel_reefer

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Wow! What is up with this lately! I'm tagging along to see what materializes.

Just an FYI, flushing a live fish may not be the best option for the fish. Clove oil is one of the best ways available to hobbyists to put a fish down and it's easy to find and use.


Good advice, I had never heard of this before now. In my defense he was belly up when I plucked him, he was more or less comatose and at the mercy of my water flow. He would twitch his fins every once in a while but not much else. hopefully I dont have a "next time" but ill have to use the oil next time.
 

Lionfish Lair

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Good advice, I had never heard of this before now. In my defense he was belly up when I plucked him, he was more or less comatose and at the mercy of my water flow. He would twitch his fins every once in a while but not much else. hopefully I dont have a "next time" but ill have to use the oil next time.

A lot of people aren't aware of the options. We started messing with it for sedation purposes for flushing seahorse pouches and tube feeding them. There used to be a popular line of medications that closed their doors around 2004 named Aquatronics. They were the only one that carried the stuff intended for use on fish. Loved their product line.
 

Lionfish Lair

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Your Damsel isn't causing this.
 

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