Something happening in my tank at night

[majakarot]

A few days ago I awoke to my tang being torn up in the side (posted and discussed in the disease forum) after a few days of garlic feedings it is doing much better, today I awoke to find my bicolor blenny dead on the rocks with a chunk torn out of its belly. (I understand there is a good chance something ate on it after it died) I have ran all the tests that I can think of and everything seems fine, I have recently raised my tank 2degrees to 80, but over a few days. I have a few thoughts for possibilities.... 1. Tang and blenny fighting over the last few days and tang (hippo) finally killed blenny? 2. Coincidence? 3. Electric current, or something else in the water that I can't test for ( I did recently change the prefilters on my RO system)? 4. Something in my tank stinging or biting my fish?
The weirdest thing is that everything seems just fine except the dead blenny and the sores on the tang (healing nicely)
One final possible concern... I have not seen my firefish today, but I had to get in the tank to get out the blenny and it is very jumpy so could be easily be hiding.
Another thought... the only nightlight i have is pointed directly on my frogspawn, which is the only thing in the tank with a strong enough sting to give me welts... are these fish possibly swimming into it??
thanks again

 

[lbaskball]

hmm..its halloween....must be a ghost.. jk
sorry to hera about your fish. Maybe there is a crab that is grabbing a hold of these little fish that is tearing them apart.

 

[fish-man-t]

Another thought... the only nightlight i have is pointed directly on my frogspawn, which is the only thing in the tank with a strong enough sting to give me welts... are these fish possibly swimming into it??
i would say for sure no!!
have you added any lr lately? any coral? posible a hitchicking crab?

 

[pallan]

hear any clicking or snaping at night? possibly a manits shrimp
IDK

 

[alyssia]

Originally Posted by Pallan
hear any clicking or snaping at night? possibly a manits shrimp
IDK

That's what I was gonna say...

 

[catawaba]

I'm bettin' on a mantis.....Gotta get him outta there!

 

[michaeltx]

that would be my first guess to. I would go red light hunting after lights out!!!
mike

 

[majakarot]

I have not noticed any signs of a mantis shrimp, however I did just add three corals recently (on rock) and saw 2 hitchhikers, one is some kind of snail like thing only kind of flat and about the size of a quarter which I don't think could kill anything, but the other thing is saw is a little gray and white crab that looks like an emerald crab... I have only seen it a few times and it is quite small, It doesn't seem big enough to do anything like this, but I really don't know... OMG... now that you mention it, my clown goby was laying on the sand half dead and partially eaten just a couple of days after I added the new corals... I will do research on mantis shrimp and keep my eyes open... Thanks for the input and please keep giving me ideas

 

[michaeltx]

I owuld use a red light and watch the tank at night and see what is in the tank. they dont see the red spectrum easyily so it wont spook them.
Mike

 

[majakarot]

G*D DANG IT!
I found my firefish... on the floor and very very dead

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN MY TANK???!!!!

THERE IS JUST TOO MUCH HAPPENING FOR THIS ALL TO BE COINCIDENCE

 

[drewissett]

Calm down...
have all the dead fish been torn up? (I assume so, from previous posts)
If then you probably have a mantis shrimp on your hands, (or that crab, not sure)
Get a red light, (of even a low power regular and turn the lights off and wait,
IME it takes about 2 hours after lights out for the 'nightlife' to be in full swing.
if it is a mantis, proceed w/ caution.
Let us know what you see,

 

[michaeltx]

fire fish are notorious jumpers I had 2 and both jumped you can use whats called egg crate to cover the tank to keep jumpers in.
sorry about you looseing the fishy though its always a bad thing to loose one.
Mike

 

[majakarot]

Thanks guys, I will be looking tonight in a couple of hours... does anyone think the little crab could kill a fish? I am sorry to get so upset, but to lose two fish in one day is just too much for me. I have glass lids on, but they don't cover the last 2 inches or so of the tank. I did not look at the firefish to see if it was also torn up, (I actually made my wife scrape it off the floor b/c I just couldn't deal with it today) but the clown goby and the blenny both had their bellies torn out and the tang has a hole in its side... I am at my wits end about this... If my jawfish is dead in the morning I will have a yard full of live rock by noon...
thanks again

 

[michaeltx]

There are always set backs to this hobby but dont give up on it. its all part of the life cycle jsut remember that this is all part of the daily life on a reef and in our tanks. The best thing to do is find out what is causeing it and get rid of it and then figure out where to go from there.
it gets frustrating at times though.
as far as if the little crab could have done it I doubt it most crabs are opertunistic feeds and will start to feed on anything that might have died because of something else.
mike

 

[auntkaren]

He's (She's?) gonna ask how to get the mantis out. I'm going to ask first! We have bought a mantis trap and have baited it for a solid week with shrimp or scallop or talipia. So far we've caught 2 gorilla crabs and 4 snails have crawled in and back out. Any other way to catch a mantis? (Hope I"m not hijacking this post! If so, I'm truly sorry).

 

[michaeltx]

the easiest if you can get to the rock it calls home is to do a high salinity dip of that rock it will cause the mantis to flea to a different area but the only place to go is in the bucket your dipping in.
that also works for many other critters crabs included I dont know of a easy way to get them out if you cant get to the rock to dip maybe someone else can helpo ya there.
mike

 

[fishy7]

Originally Posted by majakarot
Thanks guys, I will be looking tonight in a couple of hours... does anyone think the little crab could kill a fish? I am sorry to get so upset, but to lose two fish in one day is just too much for me. I have glass lids on, but they don't cover the last 2 inches or so of the tank. I did not look at the firefish to see if it was also torn up, (I actually made my wife scrape it off the floor b/c I just couldn't deal with it today) but the clown goby and the blenny both had their bellies torn out and the tang has a hole in its side... I am at my wits end about this... If my jawfish is dead in the morning I will have a yard full of live rock by noon...
thanks again
Hey Majak,
Sorry to hear about your fish, no fun to see

..... I have a mantis that I have been trapping for months but still have not caught him. They are smart and clever....I have tried the following:mantis traps, bottles and pantyhose. I have to suck it up pull all my rock and do the high sg dip with the hopes of catching him. If it makes you feel any better, had has killed the following: a 1ft naso, 150 hemits, 6 pepps, 10 turbos 3 chromis and lastly about 75% of my interest in the hobby. I have a 215 with 180lbs of LR.

The upside, I know a lot about the mantis shrimp....As stated before, setbacks do happen in this hobby and just have to find a way to keep going and find the positive.

Good luck

 

[1journeyman]

I too have struggled with a Mantis... I've surrendered. Mine is one of the "popping" kind that apparantly likes abelones and emeralds...
Their life expectancy is two years... I'll wait him out.
In the future, you can bet I'll QT my live rock much better.... caught two small mantis, but this one got through the QT.

 

[paulcoates]

Originally Posted by FISHY7
Hey Majak,
Sorry to hear about your fish, no fun to see

..... I have a mantis that I have been trapping for months but still have not caught him. They are smart and clever....I have tried the following:mantis traps, bottles and pantyhose. I have to suck it up pull all my rock and do the high sg dip with the hopes of catching him. If it makes you feel any better, had has killed the following: a 1ft naso, 150 hemits, 6 pepps, 10 turbos 3 chromis and lastly about 75% of my interest in the hobby. I have a 215 with 180lbs of LR.

The upside, I know a lot about the mantis shrimp....As stated before, setbacks do happen in this hobby and just have to find a way to keep going and find the positive.

Good luck
A mantis took out a 12 inch Tang? Wow. I would have tore that tank apart a long time ago

 

[cjworkman]

Originally Posted by 1journeyman
I too have struggled with a Mantis... I've surrendered. Mine is one of the "popping" kind that apparantly likes abelones and emeralds...
Their life expectancy is two years... I'll wait him out.
In the future, you can bet I'll QT my live rock much better.... caught two small mantis, but this one got through the QT.
I was unlucky enough to get 2 of those little buggers with my LR and a large predatory crab. As a team they effectively wiped out almost my entire snail and hermit crab population before I figured out what was going on. The crab wasn't hard to catch, he was huge!
The Mantis shrimp are a different story. Tried many traps and techniques to no avail.
The hard truth is there are 2 ways to get them. I caught one of them the "easy" way.. the other one as proved more elusive, so probably going to have to get him the "hard" way.
So.. "Easy" method... means you've had him for awhile and he's effectively cleaned your tank of most of your smaller hermits and snails. When this is the case, they come out more often and stay out looking for food. I basically sat in front of the tank for several hours and eventually caught a glimpse of him moving around. Once he was near the glass, i very very slowly moved a net down near him, if they are against the glass they feel trapped and will freeze instead of scurry. I sat the net directly beside him and very quickly trapped him between the glass and the net. From there you have to very quickly drag him up the glass with the net and rotate the net and pull out of the water, this has to be a fairly quick motion otherwise he will escape because they are extremely fast.
The "Hard" method is to find which rock he lives in. When you believe he is likely at home. Dig the rock out of the tank and put it in a quarantine tank or bucket (with tank water in it). Eventually he will leave his home looking for food and simply remove the rock. This is a pain for me because the "home" rocks were base rocks of my system. And you also must watch the bucket for quite awhile or poke at him in his hole to get him to leave.
I have heard very few if almost 0 success stories of catching them with traps.