Murder Mystery

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thefidget

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Aug 18, 2003
Messages
25
Location
Mountain View, CA
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
 
Could I possible have a small mantis shrimp that killed him, but couldn't finish him off
I have never heard snapping sounds from my tank at night.

Due to the snapping...yes my first guess would be a mantis shrimp, it is highly doubtful that the cleaners would have killed the blenny.
 
Reefrunner, I think he said he never heard snapping noises. I have a pistol in my 110 and just got 2 mantis in my 10g Q tank. I hear snapping all the time at night so I'm guessing if you had one you would hear it. I also do not think that the cleaner shrimp would have killed your fish.
 
Reefrunner, I think he said he never heard snapping noises.

ohmygod.gif


That does not necessarily rule out a mantis, there are smashers (making the popping sounds) and there are spearers (much quieter), however it is usually the smashers that hitchike on the LR.
 
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... :evil:

~Michelle
 
HOLY Fnck, batman.
Now that looks like a fine mantis specimin you've got there...
although to be honest I thought they had more protruding eyes than the one you've got there.
 
That look like a straightened out copapod to me, but I never noticed how much they looked like mantis shrimp, so maybe.

Is this the same shrimp you saw peering out from the hole?
 
He's a little bigger than 1/2 inch and after looking up more on amphipods, I think this guy's friendly. Yes Reefrunner, this is the guy who was staring at me. Now I'm back to the whodunnit stage...
 
could be the cleaners were cleaning ick that you could not see and that is what did him in...good luck with your mystery
 
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