Lost?

[FuzzButt]

Seems to have been an interesting last 18 hours here. I got home last night after lights out and this morning it seems my Powder Blue is MIA. I doubt he's hiding in my rocks. He was active and healthy as of 9AM Friday.

I hope I can figure out what is going on. A 3 inch $60 Blue does not just disappear.

In the tank are a 2 inch Royal Gramma, 2 1/2 inch Algae Blenny and a medium sized Percula Clown. A small Feather Duster, 75 pounds of live rock and 4 medium sized Frag's of Coral.

Ideas? This is getting expensive.

[vtec si]

Do you have a overflow? Did you check in there?

[FuzzButt]

False alarm. Whew!

I have no idea where he was hiding. I do not have an over flow. I know they like to hug the sides of rock walls and I thought I checked them all. I guess he is going thru a shy phase. Maybe the swings in temperature have confused him. A week ago I was at 85 degrees and today it is down to 76 with fan cooling.

[vtec si]

Thats great news!

[FuzzButt]

Well sort of. He was not doing well and in the past few hours in Quarentine he has passed away.

I had him a month. Very prett fish. I even stopped in the LFS on Thursday to mention he was doing great. Spoke too soon.

Maybe sometime in the future I'll get another but I think I might focus on coral's more.

[BubbaWPB]

Sorry for your loss FuzzButt. I lost a blue hippo... finally found her behind the tank as "carpet jerky". I've had a few other fish go MIA, too, (I'm assuming they jumped); I think the dogs found them and thought they were treats.

[FuzzButt]

Well things are going from bad to worse. My 16 month old Royal Gramma is dead as of this AM and my 22 month old Percula Clown is dead as of late this morning. The only fish left is a medium sized Algae Blennie. I don't know what is going on but the water Q seems to be optimal.

[leebca]

Group Suicide?

[fsa]

Fuzz, sorry for your losses. What's happened since your last post? A few years back, powder blues had a reputation for not doing well in aquariums, but don't know if that rap has gotten better or not? I have no clue about the others.

best of luck, Frank

[FuzzButt]

So far the Blenny is alive and doing all the things he was before the "event"

Seems the "Squad" of mysis shrimp that can be seen at night on the water are no longer active and appear to be floaters. Then again there are no top feeders in my tank to take care of the dead ones.

Water Q is normal. Temp is normal.

The Coral is doing great.

The biggest pain in the rear I have is a protein skimmer that likes to over fill it's cup suddenly without warning. I'm trying to figure out a way to modify the cup for an overflow tube to drain back to the tank or a bucket anbything is better than the carpet.

[oktober7609]

Fish don't usually die in groups unless something is wrong in the system...

You might want to take a water sample down to your local store and have them test the water quality- home test kits aren't always the most reliable, and neither are the people (you and me) using them...

How is your water flow? Is there good surface motion and such to oxygenate the water?

Another thing I caught in your post was that your temp was 85, and now 76? How fast did that drop take place?

And last of my ideas- what were you feeding your fish, how much, and how often?

-oktober7609

[FuzzButt]

The temp drop was over almost a period of a day. I was not home one day and the inside air temp was at 85 then we turned the A/C on and I started using a fan on the tank to keep temp's inline with room air temp. There were several day's between the Powder blue and the others. Ya I was sthinking about taking a sample to the LFS.

I have good flow and quite a bit of surface movement.

I think I'll keep the Blenny alone with the coral for a while. He eats the hair algae and that's about all I feed him. I have a slight hair algae growth 3 of my base rocks. The Blenny and the Powder Blue were eating it back quite well.