Disappearing Act - Blue Reef Chromis

[DaFrog]

I got 5 Blue Reef Chromis on Friday - They are disappearing at the rate of one a night - And the skimmer cup is overflowing in the morning.
Tank Specs
75 gallons - 7 months old - 260Watts Sunpaq - EuroReef RS-80 skimmer - About 110 pounds florida live rock and 80 pounds sand
2 false percula - 1 flame angelfish - 1 lawnmower blenny - 1 dragonet - 3 (now) blue reef chromis - 5 peppermint shrimps - 2 sea cucumbers - 2 serpent stars - 1 horseshoe crab - 30+ blue legged hermit crabs and turbo snails - 2 small pistol shrimps (less than 1/2 inch afew weeks ago) - 1 very samall BTA - a few ricordia
Ammonia went up to 0.3 late yesterday so I did a water change

Any ideas?

-Nicolas

 

[rbursek]

I lost Cardinals like that, no bodys, I thought it was the serpent stars, I had 2, when I moved my tank I got rid of the serpent stars, now I have Cardinals again and they do not disapear. Had a Chromie jump into a overflow, actually a couple fish did that, I keep them covered now.
Bob

 

[ZooKeeper1]

IMO if you want to have 5 Chromis, get 9. Not many people have added a group without losing a few.

 

[TheJGMProject]

same has happened to me....I bought about 7 chromis total-now i don't have any...some didn't survive (even though everything in my tank was/is doing fine) or they just dissappeared. Multiple chromis do better in bigger tank like 60gal and up IMO.


Gook luck

 

[Anonymous]

Chromis are notorious for doing this. There is some after dark murder and mayhem going on and eventually you will have one fish. There was an article in a recent Coral magazine by Dr. Thaler about combatting this - ultimately the idea is larger schools and feed several times a day.

 

[Anonymous]

I have had a school of 11 chromis in my 120 for the last several months. I haven't lost any of them. This is a open-aquascaped tank, and I feed 3-4 times a day.
Whenever I had small groups in the past I would have in-fighting, but I have seen no aggression within this group. I don't know if it is because of the larger group or not. I think that a lot of the harmony in my tank is because of the extremely high flow I have (~70x turnover), but that is just a guess.

 

[stubbsz]

I had six and it went down to 1 in two weeks. I had visions of a predator in the tank... but the last one survived for..well he's still here despite two or three trips to the sump.

I find it hard to believe he was a bully; I never witnessed that and he is fine with any new fish.

 

[Anonymous]

They are fine with new fish once they are the last man standing. They can and will finish others off whether by direct attack or stress.

 

[mr_X]

i had 4 chromis, and still have 4.
maybe it has something to do with the florida live rock. fla rock is notorious for hitch hiking predators. i notice that my chromis sleep in the rockwork, whereas the other fish don't. maybe something is making a meal out of them.

 

[rbursek]

started with 5 and have 4 left after a year. RTWLR
Bob

 

[SnowManSnow]

I don't know if anyone else has had this happen, but my chromis fish LOVE jumping into the overflow box..

have you looked in there?>

B

 

[rbursek]

had one of mine do that, got it back in the tank, had other fish do that, now I have tops on them.
Bob