Murder Mystery

[thefidget]

My darling lawnmower blenny is dead! It looks like someone ate his tummy and some of his face. 8O I have had him for over a month now and he has been eating well and very active. I checked my water and it is the same as usual - pH 8.1, SG 1.025, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and nitrate 10. He has been eating all the food I put in the tank: formula one, formula two, mysis, brine shrimp, and daphnia.

I looked for him this morning at feeding time (when he has always been front and center). He never showed and I couldn't find him behind any of the rocks. When I came home later this afternoon he was being nibbled on by one of my cleaner shrimp. Could they have killed him?

Could I possible have a small mantis shrimp that killed him, but couldn't finish him off? :evil:

My tank is a 26-gallon with 2 false perculas, 2 rose anemones, a plate coral, a frogspawn, 2 skunk cleaners, 6 red legged hermits, 6 blue legged hermits, one fromia starfish, and 9 astrea snails.

I have seen the cleaners cleaning him on numerous occasions - could they have become overzealous? I have never heard snapping sounds from my tank at night.

Please help with insight. I need to know what happened to my poor blenny so it doesn't get to my clowns.

Thank you so much for your help.

~Michelle

 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to reefs.org, fidget.

I doubt very seriously it was the shrimps, fidget. Chances are they found the carcass and only pulled it to where they were more comfortable eating it. Unfortunately, there's little information for me to hazard any kind of guess as to why the blenny may have died.

Do watch the other inhabitants for similar "mystery deaths". Even without the snapping noise, you can't rule out a mantis or similar creature. If you wish to replace this fish, do be sure to quarantine for 30 days - if the animal makes it through q/t no problem, and doesn't last in the display, you know that something's going on there.

Daphnia for the salties? I love it for goldfishes and similar, but have never used it for marine fish, does it work well for them?

 

[thefidget]

Thank you so much for the quick reply - it helped to calm my nerves.

"Daphnia for the salties? I love it for goldfishes and similar, but have never used it for marine fish, does it work well for them?"

My reefkeeping guru said it's good to clean out the system of the salties every once in a while. I haven't seen any problems yet so far, unless it didn't agree with the blenny...

Thank you so much for your help. I hate loosing fish.

~Michelle

[/quote]

 

[Anonymous]

You're welcome, Michelle. No one likes losing fish. I'd check more in depth into the wisdom of using something like daphnia for salties, and I definitely would not feed brine shrimp at all (unless it's all you have in live form to get particularly picky eaters feeding). There tend to be issues when feeding freshwater animals to saltwater animals, but I don't know that it could cause a problem so quickly.

 

[thefidget]

Ok, so after the lights went out, I peered into the tank and saw a small brown shrimp peering back at me. I tried to get a picture of it for ID'ing, but it ducked when I hit it with the flash. Now I was sure I had a target for my murder suspect, I took the rock out, ran fresh water in the suspect's hole, rinsed the rock in tank water and returned it to the tank.

The attached pictures are what fell off. About 5 of them in varying sizes. The one pictured is the largest at about 1 inch (not including antennae). I poisoned the little buggers with copper sulfate.

Now I have to figure out how to assure that I have rid the tank of these buggers...

~Michelle

 

[Anonymous]

Looks to me like you captured some amphipods. They're harmless crustaceans, and even if they weren't I doubt they could dispatch your blenny. Normally you will find hundreds of these guys in a tank your size. 1" seems a bit big for one though. The largest ones I've seen are only about 1/2" long.

FWIW, regarding the nutritional value of FW animals--*some* FW crustaceans have a nutritional profile very similar to that of SW crustaceans, and can be used as an exclusive food for SW animals. Crayfish are a good example. However, most FW fish are completely unsuitable as food for SW animals.