Disappearing fish ???

R

rocketpop

OK about a 2 week ago I bought 3 blue green chromis. Little small guys. They did great for about a week and then one day I noticed that two where missing. Left me with one chromis.

I said OK, maybe they died and snails and crabs took care of them.

I then bought two more blue green chromis. They were eating and looked good. They were there when I went to bed last ngiht, but today when I got home from work the two new ones where gone.

I have one blue green chromis doing good and one maroon clown. I have a fairly large GBTA and a good size CBS.

I see no bodies anywhere. No cluster of snails eating something. Nothing. Could the the GSM be killing and feed the GBTA???


Water:

nitrites - 0
amno - 0
nitrates - 10
phos - .5
ph 8.4
kh - 8
cal - 450 - 500
 
Could be a rock crab, I posted pics of one I found a few months back in my tank. Kept picking off chromis and other fish that sleep in the rock work.
 
Sorry, didn't catch the post before mine. I think it's rock crabs, specifically stone and gorilla crabs. Tampa bay live rock, thinks they are so bad they dedicated a link off the front page just to them.

http://www.tampabaysaltwater.com/thepackage/watchout.html

For clarification I had 3 stone crabs and 1 gorilla. I would have actually kept the gorilla in a seperate tank if I could of caught him... Cause he was pretty cool!. My fish thought he was algae, and when they got close, he'd gut them... it was pretty horrific.

It could be the chromis running each other off, but, where are the bodies? My experience would be that one would jump out of the tank, or you will notice one stressed out.

Mantis shrimp can be another real threat, but, that would take months to get one to the size big enough to eat a chromis. My experience also tells me mantis aren't shy like rock crabs.
 
Those chromis will kill off the weaker one till you have one. Ask me how I know. I started with 5 and have mean SOB left.


@rocketpop wrote:
 
If you want to check for rock crabs use a red light at least a couple of hours after lights out. You may even want to get into the habit of turning the lights off at dusk for a few weeks...

Remember if it's rock crabs, where there is 1 there is likely more than 1. Snowflake moray and zebra morays are reef safe except they eat pest like that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top