Clownfish Vanished

Cjrbug

New Member
So my tank is a little more than a month old and over the weekend I added two clownfish to my tank. They seemed to be getting along wonderfully. I checked the paramaters over the weekend and everything was as it should be (don't have kits to test now). I had live rock and a 10 small crab CUC in the tank for a few weeks prior.

Now I wake up and one of my clownfish has disappeared. It's not on the ground anywhere. It's not on the ground or floating atop and it's not stuck in the protein skimmer or anything like that. It's just gone.

I haven't seen much in terms of hitchikers from the live rock, other than this morning when i moved all the live rock around looking for the clownfish .... there was a small white guy crawling along the sand, not sure what it was.

So, could it have been the crabs?
 

sasquatch

Brunt of all Jokes~
PREMIUM
a clean up crew wouldn't finish off a whole fish that quick, if it was nailed by a hitch hiker crab it was probably dragged into the crabs hole, if you had test kits you could look for an ammonia spike, you probably wouldn't see a hitcher anyway they hide real good
 

Cjrbug

New Member
Well, I noticed the missing clown this morning after having the lights off overnight. So could the CUC have accomplished that? I'll get test kits after work today, but had their been an ammonia spike or some issue with the water, I'd expect to see the fish somewhere, right? Dead perhaps but it'd be there?
 

sasquatch

Brunt of all Jokes~
PREMIUM
doubtful on the cuc, could be hidden in the rock work, a couple of days should show something
 

Cjrbug

New Member
OK, so tonight my other clown was behaving normally when the lights were on. Swimming normally. Eating. Lights out a few hours ago and my girlfriend just checked the tank before bed and the clown is stuck in one of the pieces of rock. I went and used the net and dislodged it. Alive and swimming again now, but looks to be injured.

Never did find any sign if my other clown. Not in the tank. Not out of the tank. Not under the rocks that I could find.
 

Shamus

Active Member
Sorry to hear about the clown troubles - any potential that you have a nasty hitchhiker in the rocks picking off the fish? Maybe a bad crab or mantis?
 

sasquatch

Brunt of all Jokes~
PREMIUM
+1 on that

Sorry to hear about the clown troubles - any potential that you have a nasty hitchhiker in the rocks picking off the fish? Maybe a bad crab or mantis?

OK, so tonight my other clown was behaving normally when the lights were on. Swimming normally. Eating. Lights out a few hours ago and my girlfriend just checked the tank before bed and the clown is stuck in one of the pieces of rock. I went and used the net and dislodged it. Alive and swimming again now, but looks to be injured.

Never did find any sign if my other clown. Not in the tank. Not out of the tank. Not under the rocks that I could find.

sounds like your fish are under stress, some more info would be helpful like lighting, full test results for water, temp, salinity etc
 

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
I'll get test kits after work today, but had their been an ammonia spike or some issue with the water, I'd expect to see the fish somewhere, right?

Without test kits... it's possible the new tank is just now cycling...

just my 1st guess... are you doing water changes? If so, how frequently & in what %? How big is the tank? Running any chemical filtration? (carbon, etc...)

Without test kits & seeing the ammonia rise, then fall to zero, followed by the nitrites rising & then falling to zero & then seeing the nitrates soar, followed by water changes to bring them down - introducing the fish may have kicked of a cycle...
 

sasquatch

Brunt of all Jokes~
PREMIUM
Without test kits... it's possible the new tank is just now cycling...

just my 1st guess... are you doing water changes? If so, how frequently & in what %? How big is the tank? Running any chemical filtration? (carbon, etc...)

Without test kits & seeing the ammonia rise, then fall to zero, followed by the nitrites rising & then falling to zero & then seeing the nitrates soar, followed by water changes to bring them down - introducing the fish may have kicked of a cycle...

you may have nailed it there, month old tank and just introduced bio load, test kits, love em hate em but gotta have em, like taking a baby home without a car seat
 

Waya

Member
I had one of my clowns pull a vanishing act on me today as well. After about and hour of searching I found him in the overflow towers. Guess he wanted to see what was on the other side, took about an hour to fish him out.
 
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