Alright now another piece of the puzzle, I found my watchman goby completely attacking my coral beauty today TWICE! Although I read they’re peaceful and can’t find a ton of examples of people with aggressive YW gobies.
Didn't know bout temp and salinity, I'm gonna try to lower those, thx!Slightly low salinity for inverts. Very high temp IMO. But i doubt those are the culprit. Nitrate is reasonable/no-issue.
I can rule out most of your livestock as the culprit as they werent there since the beginning, and you are having repeated symptoms/indicators since day 0. ...unless there is a copycat killer of a previous now-dead killer. Lol
Joking aside: what species of hermit? Upload a photo of his face/claws if you dont know. Different hermits have generally different temperaments.
My primary guess is disease, parasites, or... you missed another option... a pest. There are non-disease non-parasitic pests that are predatory and reclusive. Examples include various worm species such as the dreaded bobbit worm. You could have something hiding in the shadows.
Hold on, you had Emerald that killed things! People told me that it was a "0% chance" of him attacking or eating any fish. This hobby can be so confusing sometimes.I'd put a decent size shrimp in the corner away from the rock work on fishing string or a skewer... Maybe you have an aggressive emerald crab or Gorilla crab. do it at night and check it every 30 minutes or so... I had an emerald crab that would get my lower level fish... And eat em..
Or it is your original clown... Unless I missed that he/she passed too
Bobbits wont swallow fish like that. You may be recalling them dragging fish into the sand. But if they live in a rock (as one did in one of my previous tanks), they will just take bites.Didn't know bout temp and salinity, I'm gonna try to lower those, thx!
your right about most of livestock being not eligible for the killer, so the main suspects would be
Clownfish: cute, tiny, might have killed his mates in the past, schools with chromis
YW Goby: territorial, grumpy, a get-off-my-lawn sort, not the kill-you-behind-my-shed-with-a-meat-hook sort, but has been known to attack my coral beauty, and chase the lawnmower blenny(which is dead now).
Pistol Shrimp: Again grumpy and territorial, only attacks things that go right in front of the burrow, and really he just snaps a little at them.
Big ole hermit: doddering, kinda keeps to himself, saw him once attack my Foxface, but otherwise, no aggression always found eating the dead fish
Emerald Crab: no aggression i've seen, eats algae, is nocturnal, no signs of aggression
Velvet: possibility to me not knowing good qt procedure. But find it odd that only it only affects bottom-dwelling fish and Hawkfish and Blennies are far more resistant to disease than say fox faces and Angels, I did see fast respiration on hawks but that could be a myriad of reasons. And I've never ever seen gold dots, and I've looked really close.
Bad water quality: possibly, I just found out the tests I'm using (API test kit) are not that accurate so could be that.
live rock pests: possibly, but I've never seen any and I tend to watch my tank pretty close. plus I would imagine a Bobbit would swallow a fish not hurt them, But kinda want it to be bobbit cuz I grew up watching them on documentaries and would be sweet to see one in the flesh, on the same note anyone been seen or hurt by bobbit? Gorrilla Crabs freak me out. And could bristleworms do anything?
Magic aquarium elves who want to torture me by killing fish: low probability but I wanna cover my bases.
just about any crab will grab just about anything withing claws reach.
I don't think you have an unknown predator (like a Bobbitt worm) cause you keep finding the dead fish.
To be honest though - with all the additions you've been doing - it's very possible you have a disease or parasite running through the tank.
Watch who is eating and how much very carefully - and watch for weird breathing, cloudy eyes, weird looking fins, skinny but eating (this is a big one IMO - and easy to treat).
I also am not sure about you having measurable nitrites - unless you have a huge bioload or a large spike, I don't believe you should ever be able to measure nitrites in a SW tank.
Again someone told me they would only eat fish whole.... smh.Bobbits wont swallow fish like that. You may be recalling them dragging fish into the sand. But if they live in a rock (as one did in one of my previous tanks), they will just take bites.
No good pics. It was a long time ago, always hid in the tiny tunnels of a large rock. It took 3 years before i realized it was even in the tank. Black in color, lightning fast, nocturnal. I only noticed it because one of my massive hermits (3-4") was always harassing him.@ActiveAngel do you have any pics of it? would really like to show my brother. thx!
I feel Like i did. Yes.Hold on, you had Emerald that killed things! People told me that it was a "0% chance" of him attacking or eating any fish. This hobby can be so confusing sometimes.
sorry was out at the time had to wait to get a pic of him.No good pics. It was a long time ago, always hid in the tiny tunnels of a large rock. It took 3 years before i realized it was even in the tank. Black in color, lightning fast, nocturnal. I only noticed it because one of my massive hermits (3-4") was always harassing him.
Basically the hermit would go to his rock, and pick at the rock. I thought he was just grazing. Little did i know that this would draw out the bobbit, which would try to attack the hermit. And the hermit would attack back.
Speaking of; maybe i missed your response. What type of hermit do you have?
Same thing happened to me with fish. were they just dead or were they eaten?I feel Like i did. Yes.
For a short while they're starting to lose fish that slept in the rocks or sand. Three pipe fish. Six line wrasse, 2 gobies.
Soon as I remove the emerald crab I have never had lost another fish, even after adding more.
No good pics. It was a long time ago, always hid in the tiny tunnels of a large rock. It took 3 years before i realized it was even in the tank. Black in color, lightning fast, nocturnal. I only noticed it because one of my massive hermits (3-4") was always harassing him.
Basically the hermit would go to his rock, and pick at the rock. I thought he was just grazing. Little did i know that this would draw out the bobbit, which would try to attack the hermit. And the hermit would attack back.
Speaking of; maybe i missed your response. What type of hermit do you have?
Either missing never found, found as mostly just dead skeleton and hermits finishing off, or found with emerald crab.Same thing happened to me with fish. were they just dead or were they eaten?
No, the weird thing is my inverts do great. I've only lost one and I have tons of them, fish do poorly. so I don't think that's it. good idea tho.Are you sure it's not a hitchhiker that came in as a baby and then grew large enough to prey on your fish? Mantis shrimp are notorious for it but they'd be knocking off the inverts first I'd think. I once discovered an 8 ft long eunicid worm living in a 40 lb piece of LR. It'd burrowed all inside of it. I only noticed bc the zoas on the rock stopped opening and I notice a very small head of something poking out when feeding my fish. You can turn off all the lights at night and get it pitch black and use a red light to search for creepy crawlies that only come out in the dark bc they can't see the red light. Another fun fact is those big worm monsters hate carbonated drinks. After breaking my rock in half I dumped sprite on mine to get it the rest of the way from the rock and into a bucket. I was gonna keep it and name it big worm after the guy from Friday but the gf said no way.
It wasn't a fun experience. All I saw on its head were tentacles, no snapping jaws like a Bobbitt worm. It must've had some powerful mouth parts to burrow all through that piece of rock though. It was easily over 60 lbs, that's with it hollowed out apparently. I never saw it come out of the rock until I forced it. I think I was spot feeding marine snow and I saw it's head poke out of the hole ever so slightly, right where I noticed my zoas were doing bad. That rock was covered in zoas and that was the only spot doing poorly. I knew whatever it was I wouldn't be able to get out in a reasonable manner. I thought of covering it's hole with kalkwasser like some do to aptasia, but that'd be an eyesore to me. So I went scorched earth and split the rock down the middle. There are lots of types of these worms apparently and not a lot is known about them, especially in the ocean. One that is 50 ft long is the stuff of nightmares but we have no way to know how long some grow in the wild, they're so secretive and shy. Some marine biologist simply spectate that some species may grow that long. At least we know their kryptonite: sprite.@Olong317700 Yup, similar experience. Hiding inside a large live rock. Mine was also munching on zoas... in a preferential order. It wouldnt attack one colony until the prior one was completely gone. Red light didnt scare mine as readily either.