Help!!! My Angel!

[ivy2dw7]

Something happened to my Eibli!! I got her last Saturday and everything has been fine, I found her just now at the back of my tank laying on her side on the sand breathing very hard. I got her out and put her in a bowl of the tank water. She cannot swim right at all, she just tried swimming and can really only swim upside down. She seems to have all her fins, but has scratches all over her face.. god da** it she just died I just watched her try to swim, she was seizing and then stopped breathing, she's dead. What happened to her? I'll still post the picture, I can post a picture of the other side of her too since she is now on laying on the other side. It looks like she had to have been attacked by something in the tank. I have a royal gramma and 2 ocellaris clowns that she has gotten along fine with the past week. I also have 2 serpent stars, about 15 snails, and 7 or 8 hermits, 2 of which are blue-legs, the rest are scarlet and some other kind that I can't ID -- not aggressive though. From the live rock I have also found a mystery crab, only saw it once and couldn't ID it, and a bristleworm about 2" tops. She did not look like this at all yesterday. Someone help, please. I need to know if anything else in my tank is in danger.
edit: I also have 3 peppermint shrimp and 2 cleaner shrimp

 

[ivy2dw7]

She was so cute...

 

[ivy2dw7]

OK, NOW one of my CLEANER SHRIMP is dead!!!!! I have this big piece of lace rock in the center of the tank in front that has these 2 big dips on one side and the one towards the middle of the rock forms a cave, this is where my Eibli would always hang out, although this is not where I found her, but one of my cleaner shrimp is now in this cave/dip and is dead. There has to be something inside that cave. Should I just lift the rock out of the tank and stick it in freshwater, making sure most of my wanted critters are not on it first? If I do this should I turn the lights off first, or does it matter, and should I connect a heater and a powerhead up to bucket I use? Or should I not even bother and not have mercy for anything on the rock and just use tap water at about the same temp as the tank and just dip it in there. That's really my only option because I do not have fresh cycled water handy, nor do I have aged saltwater handy to waste.

 

[bseth90]

Sorry to hear about your angel. Those pictures really bum me out. I once had a mystery crab as well and it turned out to be a stone "rock" crab and it was killing my fish. One day they would look great the next dead or just missing never to be seen again. The crab looked kinda orangish/brown with two claws tucked on the side, crawled sideways...if that sounds like your mystery crab then you must get him out and kill him or do whatever to rid yourself of it. Mine hung out in a cavelike area, so maybe he's in there. Otherwise have you checked your levels etc.? You probably have. Hope all goes well.....oh my stone crab survived fresh water so that might not work....I had to catch him...which forced me to take apart my tank. Good luck

 

[ivy2dw7]

Well I don't mean to kill whatever is in the rock, I really just want to find out what it is and if it IS something that needs to be killed then I'll find a way. But can I use just tap water to fill the bucket and then put the rock in there for a minute or 2? I'm not sure how I should do this, any suggestions?

 

[schadiest1]

all i can see is that her tail has been nipped at. i had a midnight angel and the same thing happened to him. but he was getting nipped at by another angel of mine. his tail got so bad that he was layind down on his side and giving up on life. i took him out and put him in a seperate container, but he died over night. i think that he got an infection because of the tail nipping, and maybe the same thing happened with yours. i don't think any shrimp would do this to your angel though. i wonder though..... sorry for you loss btw.

 

[ivy2dw7]

You can see scratches all over her face if you look at the pictures. I'm not saying a shrimp did it, I'm saying that one of my shrimp is now dead too, in her home. I'm going to fill a cooler with water and take the rock out and put it in there. It's white so I'll be able to see anything coming out of the rock. I just hope there IS something in the rock that I can blame it all on. I don't want to lose any more of my animals.

 

[bseth90]

The fresh water will kill most everything, but the crab possibililty might not...could chase him out though so you could see. Just a few minutes is enough...good luck

 

[ivy2dw7]

I am at a loss... There is nothing in the rock. And now my bigger serpent has decided to eat the dead cleaner as his dinner and is so full that he can barely walk right. I don't understand what could have killed my angel and what could have killed my cleaner without tearing it to pieces because it was still whole when I found it dead... Ugh, today sucks. I would've felt better if a crab scurried out of the rock. :nope:

 

[ivy2dw7]

There is another rock, a BIG rock, in the corner where the angel was, that definitely houses the bristleworm, and could possibly be housing the crab that I spotted a few weeks ago. But it probably also houses a bunch of other things that I may want, should I do the same thing to that rock as I did to the other rock? I'd have to tear down some things, but it would be too hard. I just want to get rid of anything that could be harming my animals. This rock is actual live rock, the other rock is lace rock. Do you think I should try putting it in the cooler filled w/tap water?

 

[hopkins6]

I'd take that rock out, put it out of the tank for a day and a half, where cloves though couse you don't know if that thing could hurt you. then after the rock has been sitting, take a bucket with water and swish the rock around hard to get that sucker out. you don't want it tio kill any more stuff, which cost you alot of money. Taking the rock out will kill everything on the rock.
Al least thats what i would do . kill the dam# thing

 

[ivy2dw7]

I took the big rock out, and a crab did come out of it, but I couldn't catch it in time, it was the crab that I spotted a few weeks ago, only much smaller than what I had remembered. I have a better idea of what it looks like now so I'm going to search around to ID him. I just have the rock sitting in the water right now.

 

[ivy2dw7]

Found the crab. He's very very small, only about half an inch including the span of his legs. I think I may have broken a couple of his legs in the process of trying to shake the rock to get stuff out of it, but I found him, caught him, and he is now in my quarantine tank which is in the middle of its cycle. So I don't know if he'll make it or not. But I got a picture, so anyone have ANY idea what he is? Is he the culprit??

 

[hopkins6]

good job. he's in jail now and won't be out for along time. lol.

 

[schadiest1]

from that angle i can't find anything that looks like that crab of yours... maybe you could post another pic of it from a diff. angle? i really would like to help you out if i can.

 

[bseth90]

It's close to my stone crab, but mine didn't have the same amount oF spots. Yours could be a youngster, but I'm not sure...someone should know here. Post an ID this thread that will grab attention.

 

[frenchy237]

that looks like a boxing crab, a good crab that eats algae, The body is kinda the same but the legs are a dead give-away.
They sell them on this website here
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11...ot_parent_id=4
if this is your crab its not what killed your fish.
btw srry for your loss:nope:

 

[schadiest1]

someone else agreed that it was a stone crab and from what i hear they aren't good.

 

[ivy2dw7]

I just looked at the boxing crab on this site, definitely not a boxing crab, it's a good guess though. His claws are a solid dark purple/black, so that's why I'm guessing he isn't. Does anyone have any pics of the stone crabs they had? I'll do a search on here, but it'd be nice if one of you two might have taken a pic of the crab that found its way into your tanks.
Thanks for all the responses everyone. My 3 remaining fish are doing fine, as are all the other inverts. Here's an off-topic question. Does freshwater kill bristleworms? Becuase one of the rocks I took out and put in the tap water was the home of a bristleworm and I'm pretty sure he was in the rock when I took it out. Did I kill the worm?

 

[bseth90]

I believe it will kill the worm, but I'm not 100% sure. You can get the bristles in your skin so be careful. A few weeks ago someone else had a stone crab on this site and we were discussing it. They caught and fed it to another large fish he had. If you do the search you might find that discussion. Mine was much larger than yours I wish I could be more specific.