many disappearing fish over time!!! ...?

[Still_human]

i’ve been having a rash of fish disappearing over time, and there doesn’t seem to be any pattern. i’ll have free swimming fish disappear while rock hugging fish don’t, then nothing for a long time, and all of sudden one kind of fish, and then.....what could be happening?!? 

i would have bangaii cardinals disappear, but not all, so i figured the 3 main stays kept killing the others, or chasing them to starve. the last 3 stayed apart, and weren’t a school, then there were 2, after some months, then month later just one, then adding some more, they were gone within days. and the last one gone just days ago. a long term yellow watchman disappeared a couple months ago. had 4 green chromosomes and 1 disappeared after maybe 6 months, then 5 or 6 months after that(a few weeks ago) all 3 disappeared at the same point, possibly together, at the exact same time, and then months later a 4-6month damsel disappeared. i had a happy healthy hectors goby disappear after 5-7ish months, and 2 more gobies after 8 or 9 months each. i had 2 of the 4 recent addition neon gobies disappear within days. my 7,8month happy&fat mandarin might be gone as of the past week or so. 

 

all i still have is 1 long term goby, and one from a couple months ago, 2 few week neon gobies, a long term bicolor angel, a brand new baby hippo, and possibly a pygmy/geometric hawk fish, that i saw just 2 days ago, but now feel like it might be gone, too. oh yeah, and a fire shrimp that has been in there longer than almost anything! 

iv set traps, and caught nothing, i’ve never heard mantis shrimp snaps or noises, so i’m pretty sure no mantis, it’s almost all the same rock i’ve used in previous tanks with no problems, which has all dried and died inbetween, so i don’t know how any hitchhikers could be doing this. i do have a couple brittle stars, but have never EVER had, or HEARD of them being problematic. i do have a number of “large” hermits (most still so small they’re in shells no larger than an inch, and maybe a couple or few a bit bigger), including a halloween hermit, which iv heard can be aggressive, but have never had that experience before.  

i can’t imagine having a bobbit worm, or anything, cause even if it came in TINY off a coral, i still think the disappearance were from way before a tiny one could have gotten large enough to take ANYthing, let alone be responsible for this massacre! 

 

i’ve never seen any aggression, i’ve never found any bodies or signs, 

iv looked closely all around the outside of the tank, and in the sump, and found nothing at all!

there’s never been a pattern/M.O., like only rock hugging fish disappearing, or only free swimming fish disappearing, or anything. the easiest targets for anything, like the mandarin, the gobies, and especially the shrimp, seem to last just as long, and even way longer than the very difficult free swimming targets. the thing that REALLY confuses me the MOST, is the 3 long term chromis all disappearing together, or almost together. 

 

PLEASE HELP!!! does anyone have ANY clue what the *#@%! is going on?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?the only things that i can see as even a possibility, are the hermit crabs, but i just can’t believe they’re capable of that kind of carnage, and they would definitely have gotten the mandarin and gobies first! i WOULD include the brittle stars, but they came in long after things had been disappearing.

 

*no anemones.

*not “green death” brittle stars

Edited March 7, 2021 by Still_human

[Still_human]

i tried to edit this post, and then just delete and rewrite, cause it won’t let me edit it anymore, but i don’t see how to delete it either. 

some of the time frames i gave are WAY off! i’m a horrible judge of time, after awhile, and i get even worse the longer ago it was! i just saw when i bought something i can use a reference, which i had figured was around a year ago, but was actually early 2019, so reconsidering, using that as a point of reference, here’s the updates.....the period of time of things disappearing was much longer, and many of the fish had been around much longer before they suddenly disappeared. the bangaii situation started like 2018 or so, i had the green chromis for pretty much that long too, i had the damsel(yellow tail)for at least a year. the hectors disappeared after probably a year and a half or more, and the 2 gobies probably after a little over a year to a year and a half. the mandarin disappeared after probably 2+ years. the pygmy hawk that might be gone as of the other day, has been here for around 2years, too. 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Still_human

[davelin315]

With the cardinals and the chromis people are often misled into thinking they will school peacefully which is not the case (one subspecies of chromis will do it but figuring out how to tell the difference between them is beyond me).  Banggais will kill each other off until you have a pair (our aquariums are generally too small to provide enough territory for more) and same thing with the chromises.  The rest of the fish depending on their size and age could simply be natural deaths.

[WishNewFish]

on a related note, I am dealing with some fish disease which doesn't fit the pattern.

I had all healthy QT'ed fish in my tank (5), and I introducted a tang which has been tank transferred for 12 days.

After introducing the tang, it didn't eat at all ,hiding and few days later saw its mouth stuck open. It perished few days later and then one by one, each of my health fish started breathing heavily and laying of floor and die eventually (3-4days). The symptoms show up on one fish at a time and while rest appear to be healthy and eating. The sick fish dont eat at all and heavy breathing.

 

No flashing at all on any fish.

Each fish either show boated stomach with stringy poo line or fin torn up a bit. No aggression noticed in the tank at all. there is no aggressive fish in my tank either.

I treated my display with antiobiotic dose azythrmycin for 7 days with as per dosage instructions.

Still had issue, treated with prazipro and still having issues.

 

Not sure if its fluke or ich but I dont see any fish flashing or having white spots or dont see any thing drop off them when i do a fresh water dip or when i check the dead fish closely.

 

I have two fish remaining with one close to dying.

 

all parameters such as ammonia, nitrate, nitrite are undetectable.  Ph 8.0-8.2, temp 77-78. salinity 1.024

[Still_human]

On 3/8/2021 at 11:10 AM, WishNewFish said:

on a related note, I am dealing with some fish disease which doesn't fit the pattern.

I had all healthy QT'ed fish in my tank (5), and I introducted a tang which has been tank transferred for 12 days.

After introducing the tang, it didn't eat at all ,hiding and few days later saw its mouth stuck open. It perished few days later and then one by one, each of my health fish started breathing heavily and laying of floor and die eventually (3-4days). The symptoms show up on one fish at a time and while rest appear to be healthy and eating. The sick fish dont eat at all and heavy breathing.

 

No flashing at all on any fish.

Each fish either show boated stomach with stringy poo line or fin torn up a bit. No aggression noticed in the tank at all. there is no aggressive fish in my tank either.

I treated my display with antiobiotic dose azythrmycin for 7 days with as per dosage instructions.

Still had issue, treated with prazipro and still having issues.

 

Not sure if its fluke or ich but I dont see any fish flashing or having white spots or dont see any thing drop off them when i do a fresh water dip or when i check the dead fish closely.

 

I have two fish remaining with one close to dying.

 

all parameters such as ammonia, nitrate, nitrite are undetectable.  Ph 8.0-8.2, temp 77-78. salinity 1.024

by any chance, was it a type of bristletooth tang?

[Still_human]

On 3/8/2021 at 9:47 AM, davelin315 said:

With the cardinals and the chromis people are often misled into thinking they will school peacefully which is not the case (one subspecies of chromis will do it but figuring out how to tell the difference between them is beyond me).  Banggais will kill each other off until you have a pair (our aquariums are generally too small to provide enough territory for more) and same thing with the chromises.  The rest of the fish depending on their size and age could simply be natural deaths.

i had noticed that in my tank, even tho they always school in at the store. mine seemed to get along fine, after they seemingly got rid of one or two, early on. it was usually 1 by itself and 2 sort of together, but they weren’t aggressive to eachother. all 4 chromis schooled together until eventually one became more independent, but also no aggression.

 

has anyone heard that halloween hermits are potentially dangerous to fish? what about other hermits when they get larger, like quarter-size? i’ve always heard scarlets are perfect gentlemen, but only a couple are scarlets, and there’s a halloween, and then at least a couple of few large assorted(maybe zebra, maybe red leg,  maybe some other type, i’m not sure).