un-seen predator?

[JDogg]

ok although my tank is a nano i do not fell this is a "nano question" if you feel it is feel free to move this (just drop me a line to where you put it)

i have a 10 gallon

in it i have...
7 Hermite crabs (3 red legged and 4 blue legged) and 5 Nassarius Snails

i had 2 peppermint shrimp (missing a couple of weeks now)
and today i can not find my happy little Ocellaris Clownfish , he was fine yesterday, waggity tail and all

strangely i have not seen any sign of the 3-4 bristle worms that came on my lr in over a week either (they used to come out at feeding time) this may not be a bad thing.

my params are fine (ammonia, 'trite and 'trate are all 0)

admittedly the clown could have jumped out as i have an open top and a inch or so of space between the top of the water and the light, but i can find not mummified body on the floor or behind the stand. if he died i am sure that the crabs and snails would have made short work of the body.

but the fact that the shrimp and the worms are also missing has we worried.

could i have an unseen hitchhiking predator on the loose? none of my lr pieces are very big, and none have any large holes so i do not know where something would hid. how can i know for sure?

what do you think?

this tank shot is a couple of weeks old...

TIA

 

[melosu58]

The missing clown has me worried but not the shrimp as they hide alot. I have three peppermint shrimp and never see them except their molts so I know they are there. I would maybe do a few nite time inspections with a red cover over the flashlight to see what is in the tank.

 

[JDogg]

The missing clown has me worried but not the shrimp as they hide alot. I have three peppermint shrimp and never see them except their molts so I know they are there. I would maybe do a few nite time inspections with a red cover over the flashlight to see what is in the tank.

i have checked @ night a couple of time to try to see the shrimp, nothing unusual yet

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Any strange clicks coming from your tank? Is your live rock from the Atlantic or Pacific? Seems like mantis shrimp are way more likely to come in on Atlantic/Caribbean rock.

 

[Sadielynn]

Could be a small crab try a glass tilted with food in the bottom and lay in wait it may take a couple times to do it, it could also be hidden well with in the LR I had 2-3 of them and it was like an infestation there fore I changed my LR out so that I got rid of them , it is possible that the clown just died and the clean up crew did what they do drug it to a cove and had a feast ...

 

[JDogg]

Any strange clicks coming from your tank? Is your live rock from the Atlantic or Pacific? Seems like mantis shrimp are way more likely to come in on Atlantic/Caribbean rock.

maybe it is a question is should have asked, but i have not idea where it is from, other then the LFS i am not even sure the LFS lady knows where it came from originaly...

 

[Sadielynn]

The thing is if they place all the rock into a common bin it is possible to come from just about any where , even from hitchhiking in or corals in your tank ...it would amaze you how they tend to "burry" themselfs

 

[Ziggy953]

Hmmm...How old is this tank?

From the pic you posted it looks like you have a lot of diatoms in your tank which tells me that it is still a new tank??? Are you sure that your water params are all in check? I would test them again just to make sure.

 

[ezy33]

You could try soaking your rock in a hyposalinity (very salty) tank to see what crawls out.

 

[Sadielynn]

You could try soaking your rock in a hyposalinity (very salty) tank to see what crawls out.

HypOsalinity is low salt water
HypERsalinity is high salt water . I agree it looks like it is a fairly new system

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

With such a small clean up crew, I can't picture them devouring a clowns carcass to the point where there is no remains in a single night. It's also unlikely that there is a predator (the clicking Mantis (aka basher) attacks snail populations), that is what they are designed to dothey are only active during the day. Spearers are the kind that attack fish, they are also only active during the day. (not nocturnal). But you would know if you had one from the free piercing you got with your hand in the tank.

I would say jumper..
Have you checked your overflow box lately (If that is what I'm seeing at the back left corner)?

 

[JDogg]

Hmmm...How old is this tank?

From the pic you posted it looks like you have a lot of diatoms in your tank which tells me that it is still a new tank??? Are you sure that your water params are all in check? I would test them again just to make sure.

set up since November, i check params every other day, looks good. 0s

You could try soaking your rock in a hyposalinity (very salty) tank to see what crawls out.

would that not kill my good bacteria?????

I would say jumper..
Have you checked your overflow box lately (If that is what I'm seeing at the back left corner)?

that is my aquaclear "fug"

new developments HERE

 

[vietcu]

does your powerhead have a covering to it? Just asking because mine ate one of my clowns. I had just set up my system for 2 weeks and all the param. are fine, so I bought a few clowns. Couple days later I check and I only saw one, thought I had a predator also. Turned out he was sucked into one of the powerhead(was sleeping too close to the intake) that I didnt have a cover to. Anyways one of my crabs was eaten today, his legs are all over near his body. So I have to see what ate him. Anyways if you didn't check your powerhead, you might want to check there also.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

... Anyways one of my crabs was eaten today, his legs are all over near his body. So I have to see what ate him. Anyways if you didn't check your powerhead, you might want to check there also.

Most likely, your crab just molted. They'll do that every few months or so. I just found a little pile of legs and body in my tank yesterday, but it was just a molt.

 

[Jarred Darque]

Crab molts can look like the real thing. I actually had a clown fish die in my 10 gallon before. He died at like 2in the afternoon, I assume, that is the last time I saw him.

At 5, after not having seen him for 3 hours, and I was sitting next to the tank most of the time, I started taking the LR out of the tank. I ahd to go throug hteh rocks twice to find him. He was dead, and was copeltely covered by a sea slug. I managed to remove the fish from underneath it, EVERYHTING BUT THE HEAD had already been devoured, bones where not even attatched anymore, there was a bit of tendons or somehting that had part of his tail still connected to his head, but in a time period of less than 3 hours, this slug had taken care of almost and entire clownfish. I did not see the slug for another 4 months when my tank crashed, and he died and came out of a piece of LR when I removed him, so basically, you could have one, and he may hop onto a dieing fish (my clown was headed towards death at the time) and take care of him quickly. I dont think he could get onto a healthy fish though

 

[Xavier_6708]

could they have found a party room inside the LR??? and are all in there playing poker and sippin on champagne?

lol, sry for ur loss.. i want a tiny SW tank soon

 

[Jarred Darque]

Xavier, pelase do. Understand they are not near as cheap as FW tanks, they can take ALOT of work to get right, but when they are. Mine is only a 29 gallon, but I still sit watching it hours all the time. There is no end to things to watch in an established tank.