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clutchcargo

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Last week I lost my only fish a Dwarf Angel. Vanished without a trace. I captured a Mantis the day before the fish disappeared. I spent the week trying to figure out who to blame by watching the tank. My traps don't seem to work (Exterminator and soda bottle baited with silversides). I hear clicking coming from the tank (another mantis?) but I've not seen another mantis. My tank also houses a hitchhiker hairy crab, Brittle star, and an anemone. Could the Angel have bumbled into the anemone? There also used to be two Brittle stars but the same thing happened, one vanished wothout a trace. I've never seen the hairy crab do anything except freeload some food and the star was being picked on by the Angel the day before (revenge?). That leaves the cast of suspects, Hairy crab, the Brittle star, Anemone, or a possible Mantis. One more piece of evidence, Over the past few weeks, I pulled two murdered hairy crabs from the tank. The bodies were there but obviously mangled.
So who do you think is to blame?
 

Katspaw

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I have had mantis shrimps in my show tank, and a hitchhiker crab that was moved to the quarantine tank. I never lost a fish to the manis and he wasn't a small on either. But I knew he was there and would target feed the area of his burrow. The hitchhiker crab I placed in the quarantine tank myself, not knowing if he was reef safe, I moved him over to the quarantine tank until I IDed him. I had lost a linkia star right before finding him in the main tank. I had four cardinalfishes in the quarantine tank when I did this. My tank is at work and we got busy so I didn't remove the fish thinking they would be okay til later. Later became the next day, And it was to late. The crab killed all four of them over night. And he had taken their body parts into his burrow area. With my experience I would blame the crab.

Tracey
 

clutchcargo

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How naive I've been. I was under the impression that the hairy crab was bad because he'd dine on coral and easy to grab food. I gave him refuge because I've never seen him do anything (innocent until proven guilty). I guess I'm going to make some changes to the underwater judicial system. He's grown quit a bit since I found him. But now I'm pissed and out $25 for the Angel and $10 for the star.
 

Anemone

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What type of angel, and how long did you have it? You may be looking for a culprit when the fish died on its own, and the clean up crew just did what they get paid for. A study by Inland Aquatics found that a number of fish had "mystery death syndrome" (ie, no symptoms) up to two months after arriving from the importer transhipper. Flame angels had some of the worst survival records, with coral beauties not too far behind. Morgan at Inland concluded that some uncontrolled factor in the capture and shipment was influencing certain fish's mortality (they could get "healthy" shipments in, just not reliably).

Kevin
 

clutchcargo

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It was a dwarf Angel, only about 1 1/4" and about 7 weeks in the tank. He looked happy before the lights turn off at 9:30, grazing on algae. I checked the tank before I went to sleep around 1AM, he was laying low around the back side of the tank. When I woke up at around 6:30AM to use the bathroom, I checked the tank and nothing. I thought he was just hiding someplace. But after I wokeup for real, I saw no trace.
Prior to that, I noticed he had a mark on his side that looked like a tiny dent. I wondered what that was from, but now I think he may have been in a fight earlier.
Things that make you say, hmmmmmm.
 

clutchcargo

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jdeets, the anemone is a Florida Gulf pink tip and pretty small. When it's fully extended, it can stretch to about 3-4 inches wide and 4 inches tall from bottom of foot to tip of tentacles. Typically, when the lights go out the anemone retracts.
 

clutchcargo

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jdeets, the anemone is a Florida Gulf pink tip and pretty small. When it's fully extended, it can stretch to about 3-4 inches wide and 4 inches tall from bottom of foot to tip of tentacles. Typically, when the lights go out the anemone retracts.
 

jdeets

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I'd vote for the anemone being the culprit before the crab. I've heard experiences of anemones gulping down whole yellow tangs. That was a pretty small angel, and the anemone sounds like it would be plenty big to take the fish in. Fish are generally too quick to be reeled in by a hitchhiker crab--and would usually be able to escape a "crab attack."
 

tazdevil

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FWIHR, I wouldn't blame another mantis yet. The other two hairy crabs may have been killed by a mantis, which would make it the "clubbing" and not the "spearing" type. Clubbers tend to not go after fish- they prey on crabs,shrimp,mussels,snails. The other hairy crab may have done all of this while the dwrf angel was sleeping (as well as the other 2 hairy crab deaths). The anenome would be my last suspect, as most HEALTHY fish would not fall prey to that anenome (carpets are a whole other matter-very strong sting). Just my 2 cents, Let the flaming begin.
 

clutchcargo

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The hairy crab: suspect in question. Body size not including legs is about the size of a quarter.
crab1.jpg
 

tazdevil

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Looks like he needs a "Department of Corrections" number under that pic!
icon_biggrin.gif
I wouldn't rule him out because of size- he might have grabbed him while asleep (as some crabs are very adept to). But, you do have a long list of potential suspects. One possibility- add a trigger. They will attack most shrimp and crabs for dinner, great way to git rid of them if you don't like them. Problem is if you plan on keeping a reef- many reef inhabitants would get chowed by a trigger. Good luck, keep us updated if you catch a definite suspect!
 

clutchcargo

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Ok, got him. I placed some silversides in a net and he walked right into the net. That was simple.
Right in front of us, he grabed the cucumber with one claw and was taking it to his labyrinth. I hope this ends the tirade of death in my tank. His residence is a goldfishbowl for the time being, until I can figure out what to do with him.
 

danmhippo

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Sell him back to the LFS and let someone else to worry about that. Now your problem narrows down to how to keep him alive in the goldfish bowl for 2 days while Thanksgiving is just around the corner.
 

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