Fish murder!

[Naiad]

I hope it's not a bobbit. Those things are a nightmare to find! Wicked fast and stealthy... sigh. This weekend will bring another night of watching

 

[Wiz]

I also have a 30 gallon fuge that I could put it in and it would be just as cool to me as any other critter. Or I would build a tank specifically for it. I find them quite interesting

If it turns out to be a bobbit I will pay to have you ship it to me.


are you serious?! youd love a bobbit!? until it started killing your inhabitants and corals. you might wanna think about that a bit more. sure they are cool, but not in a mixed reef tank. I spend way too much on my fish/corals to lose them to a random, ugly worm

 

[Wiz]

I know I'm a little bit abnormal. I love the bugs and worms in my tank as much if not more than the coral and fish. I really wish I had the money to become a marine biologist. But I'll have to settle for bringing the Reef to me

 

[Lenny_S]

Assuming u don't want it. Lol sry

If that's what it is, it's all yours Wiz! [emoji12]

 

[Lenny_S]

I hope it's not a bobbit. Those things are a nightmare to find! Wicked fast and stealthy... sigh. This weekend will bring another night of watching

I hope so too, it just came to mind for me because the chunk out of your wrass looked like one of the victims at my LFS. It took the owner and 2 of his staff to wrangle that bugger.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

I have just lost my fourth wrasse in the past four weeks. Something is killing them! I am completely heart broken. I will be attempting to remove all crabs from my system in hopes they are the culprits. I have lost my 7 year old yellow wrasse, both my leopards and a flasher. I find their bodies with brand new wounds and the hermits feasting on them. They are in perfect health otherwise. I am soo done right now.

My tiny coral banded kills every new fish I add to the tank. I feel your pain

 

[Breakthecycle2]

My tiny coral banded kills every new fish I add to the tank. I feel your pain

I doubt that. Coral banded usually "Can't" kill fish.

 

[skrivan]

I had few crabs that seemingly came out of nowhere. I'm pretty sure they were gorilla crabs and I trapped/caught at least 5 of them. I had heard that crabs with big claws are really bad for anything in your aquarium and they're pretty fast. A trap is easy enough to make from a jar with a plastic lid. I put a cord on mine so I could pull it out easily once I had a bad guy cornered. I used a chunk of raw shrimp for bait. I placed the trap in the area that the crab was seen, wait for it to get dark, keep lights off but have a flashlight handy. In less than 10 minutes id have one. Repeat. I also had a Sally Lightfoot crab that I unfortunately put in myself because I thought they were cool. I think she was picking on my toadstools and maybe my Mandarin. This one was not so easy to catch, but after awhile I realized it mostly liked to eat whatever was on the live rock, and was usually on bottom of the rock. So I put some pretty 'meaty' live rock into the cutoff bottom of a 2 liter bottle (with drain holes punched in---that way the crab couldn't "float out" when retrieving the trap). This crab never went for any other bait other than the live rock, but she is out and in my QT for now.

 

[SandJ]

Not trying to steal your thread, but the exact same thing happened to my wrasse. Would love to know what happened also.

Exact same thing happened to my six line wrasse. Bought an established tank (2 years old), had it set up over 6 months. Over that time added a couple corals and 3 peppermint shrimp (last addition was several months earlier).

One morning I noticed the wrasse was injured along the dorsal fin. It always slept in holes in the rocks so I thought it probably scraped it on the rocks. It healed completely.

Week later same thing happened only worse, and it was on the dorsal fin and belly this time. It slowly started healing though. Was almost completely better when I found it as pictured above, dead.

It looked like something had taken bites out of it.

No hermits, no other crabs, only a few snails. 2 clowns, 1 chromis, 1 diamond goby, and large brittle star that never comes out from under its rock. The only thing that could have done the damage is the brittle star (but it is over 18" across and I would think he would have killed the fish, not just injured it) or the clowns (the injuries always occurred at night and the clowns never leave the Xenia and the chromis sleeps inches from them and it has never been bothered).

 

[Eckolancer]

Look for a small lobster. Found one in a buddies tank that killed half his fish before catch the lobster.

 

[Wiz]

Not trying to steal your thread, but the exact same thing happened to my wrasse. Would love to know what happened also.

Exact same thing happened to my six line wrasse. Bought an established tank (2 years old), had it set up over 6 months. Over that time added a couple corals and 3 peppermint shrimp (last addition was several months earlier).

One morning I noticed the wrasse was injured along the dorsal fin. It always slept in holes in the rocks so I thought it probably scraped it on the rocks. It healed completely.

Week later same thing happened only worse, and it was on the dorsal fin and belly this time. It slowly started healing though. Was almost completely better when I found it as pictured above, dead.

It looked like something had taken bites out of it.

No hermits, no other crabs, only a few snails. 2 clowns, 1 chromis, 1 diamond goby, and large brittle star that never comes out from under its rock. The only thing that could have done the damage is the brittle star (but it is over 18" across and I would think he would have killed the fish, not just injured it) or the clowns (the injuries always occurred at night and the clowns never leave the Xenia and the chromis sleeps inches from them and it has never been bothered).

What kind of brittle? The green brittles are nasty and known fish killers.

 

[SandJ]

What kind of brittle? The green brittles are nasty and known fish killers.

Not a green, it is mostly black.

 

[Naiad]

Not a green, it is mostly black.

That shouldn't do it. The way stars eat wouldn't leave evidence unless disturbed. I will continue to update the thread as I find things

 

[Naiad]

Here is the mantis. He is another smasher and super excited about the snail I gave him so he is off my suspect list.

 

[Eckolancer]

Those green mantis are some of the meanest ones I've seen. They chase food down.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

That mantis didn't do that to your wrasse. That's not what it would look like.

 

[Eckolancer]

That mantis didn't do that to your wrasse. That's not what it would look like.

I still think a lobster in the tank. The bites look like what a triggerfish would do. But that would be easy to spot.

 

[mcarroll]

I'm convinced that is not a clean bite wound...you'd have a shark on the loose if that were the case, and you haven't found any sharks!

The serpent star is an ambush predator (all, not just the greens) and would choose to eat whole like mine did a porcelain crab.

I suspect it's one or more of your crabs (stray or CUC...doesn't matter) "cleaning the wound" inflicted by one of their own, or conceivably one of the mantis shrimps/something unknown.

Your wrasse would have been going into the sand at night to sleep, possibly into a cave first....both areas where an ambush predator/surprise attacker could be hiding and he'd be vulnerable. Bobbits, mantis, crabs, et al.

Good luck getting your rock "civilized"!!

 

[Naiad]

I'm just trying to figure out what would be big enough to make a killing blow. Yea I didn't think a smashing mantis would be really interested in fish but good to get him out. I do want clams eventually. Will keep at it. Plan to over feed on nights I can't watch to try and keep fish safe until I can figure something else out to do with them

 

[mcarroll]

You have some bottle traps going, or how are you collecting all the "unwanteds"?