Missing lawnmower blenny

i haven't seen my lawnmower blenny in couple days. i've had no indications that it was unhealthy in any way at all and i've seen no evidence of cleaner shrimps or hermit crabs looking like they're cleaning up any kind of carrion. the blenny's been in my tank for many months and it has always been happy to stay out in the open... but would it be normal for it to go hiding in some LR crevice for an extended period?
 

lcstorc

Well-Known Member
Mine is usually out and about as well. Have you checked the overflow and behind the tank? He could have jumped though they are not particularly jumpy fish. Other than that I would keep an eye on the parameters. If something went wrong you should see an amonia spike.
 
Yeah, I checked the overflow, the skimmer, and even the sump (even though it's impossible to get through the sponge into the sump). And I searched all over the floor with a flashlight - i did have a weather loach jump out of a tank years ago and survived overnight on the carpet.
Perhaps I'll just move around some easy-to-move rocks tonight and see if I can discover anything.
 
Damn. I just moved around a bunch of rock to try to find him and came up empty. Then I ended up wasting 45 minutes to get the rocks back into a stable position and eventually repositioned some corals in my tank just because I couldn't get them to sit right where they used to be. But yeah, no blenny. This is really confusing. I'd have voted that fish "least likely to die and/or disappear" of all the fish in my tank.
 
If something went wrong you should see an amonia spike.
No ammonia spike, by the way. still reading zero. so i'd say there are really only 3 possibilities:
1) jumped out of the tank and crawled far enough away that i haven't found him yet (highly unlikely)
2) still alive and stuck somewhere (pretty unlikely)
3) died and was so quickly eaten by hermit crabs and cleaner shrimp that there are no remains and no degradation of water quality. (also not totally likely given his size and the smallness of the crabs in the tank, and the fact that the fish seemed 100% healthy)

so i have sadly kind of given up now.
 

Tru2nr

Well-Known Member
what are the other fish that you have in the tank...anything that say if aggrevated by the blenny could have attacked/eaten' it? and did u take the sponge off to see if he was caught at the sponge?
 
what are the other fish that you have in the tank...anything that say if aggrevated by the blenny could have attacked/eaten' it? and did u take the sponge off to see if he was caught at the sponge?

I have all very small, timid tank inhabitants. Firefish, banggai cardinals, a gramma, a small juvenile percula. As for mobile inverts, just a pair of cleaner shrimp, some snails, and some small hermits.
I cleaned the sponge recently, there was nothing in it but some bits of food.
 
OK, now this is REALLY weird and troubling. My juvenile percula clown is missing now. I haven't added any rock to my tank recently (not for many months) so I can't imagine there's a predator lurking in the rocks somewhere. The only thing I've added recently was a green open brain. Is there ANY chance the brain could be eating my fish at night? Please help me solve this, I'm going nuts!
 
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