Blenny Scooter died - HELP!!

Amandacu22

New Member
I have had a Scooter Blenny in my tank for about a year and a half. 30 gallon tank with plenty of live rock and at least 5 to 6 corals. I have never fed him copepods and feed my fish Mysis shrimp. All seemed fine up until about a month ago. He has been living with all of the fish in the tank for 90% of the time he has been in there. 2 Clown Fish (1 male, 1 female), a docile Damsel, and a Bi-colored Angel.

About 5 weeks ago we accidentally "crushed" him with the tool we use to siphon the sand. Nothing physically looked wrong and we realized right away he was under the tube. He seemed to recover okay, but still got a little ansy every time we used it in the tank, erratic swimming etc. but he always calmed down pretty quickly...

About 3 weeks ago my female clown started bullying him, bad. She hosted with our Hammer Spawn and was super territorial. She would push him into a corner of the tank, away from the Spawn, and make him stay there, the Blenny would just go behind the rocks and stay in his corner and I feared the clowns were stressing him out big time...

I noticed he didn't come out as often last week, he used to always be out...and the clowns continued to push him around, this morning I found him dead. (He was alive yesterday, but kind of pale.) Something had already eaten off his dorsal fin and his eyes were white and like gone or receded?? It was disgusting to say the least...

Did something bully him into stress and then he died? Is it because I wasn't feeding him copepods? Is it both?? Did the clowns bully him because they knew he was dying?? I'm a little stumped because he didn't look super sickly before passing....he just hid more often and then I found him dead after seeing him alive the day before...
 

florida joe

Well-Known Member
It could be one of the reasons you mentioned it could be all of the reasons you mentioned or any combinations of them. Sometimes fish just die in our closed systems. In your case with so many things going on it is impossible to pin point the reason. I am sorry for your loss.
 
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