Sad day in my reef...

[Jenene]

Yesterday was a tough one. After having the most perfect day at the Reef Expo at the Meadowlands life has it's way of snapping you back into reality.
My mom and sister stopped over to see the new corals (I will expand on them another day) I noticed my new Flame Hawkfish was missing. Then a blood curdling scream (huge overreaction IMO) from my daughter. The poor thing had jumped out during the night and was dry as a bone. To add insult to injury my Dart Fish is now MIA. I am sure it is my fault. Something has been eating my corals, ( That live rock nightmare you all warned me of is happening) so I had set a bottle trap with shrimp in it and pulled it out in the dark at about 2:30 am. Most likely scared him out of the tank. Maybe the Dart Fish as well but have not found a body yet. There is a dog and 2 large Rag Doll cats in the house so there may never be a body. I am holding onto hope that he may be hiding in the rocks but doubtful.
I did catch something. Mixed reviews on whether he is the culprit but I pulled a giant bristle worm out of the trap. Some say harmless, some say the large ones will do damage. My other thought is the peppermint shrimp. Talking to people at the expo and theirs ate a lot of their corals before they could catch it. They could see the coral pieces glowing in it's body. The trap was set for the shrimp. He is going in the sump when I get him. So something ate my first flower nem and is damaging my bubble coral. My parameters are perfect, I need to figure this out fast. I just put a lot of new livestock in there...bitter sweet as the tank is looking amazing. I thought about adding a cover but the entire point of having the rimless was for the aesthetics. I may just avoid adding any more fish. Maybe replace the dart but not the Flame Hawkfish.
I will do an update when I am in a better place here...

[Disgirl]

Sad story Jenene. Hope it gets better. And I had thought our beloved discus were tough at times. Reefs way more I think now. Is there a pic of your reef tank? Good luck.
Barb

[Jenene]

Sad story Jenene. Hope it gets better. And I had thought our beloved discus were tough at times. Reefs way more I think now. Is there a pic of your reef tank? Good luck.
Barb

Thanks so much Barb. I could use the compassion today, it's been tough. I came down after posting and found yet again, another on the floor. My little Tail Spot Blenny. I couldn't even believe it. I have a theory that my reef guy shot down but I believe there are always exceptions to the rule. The Banggai Cardinal is supposed to be a very peaceful fish, but it is the last one I put in the tank. He went in on Thursday and now I am down 3 fish out of 6. I have a psychopath of a Rag Doll cat and they are supposed to be peaceful as well. The fish is nocturnal and all the jumping is happening at night...Just too coincidental for me.
Anyway, my reef shop guy is going to help me build a glass canopy. He says he has clips at the shop that should work and we will have to have some custom panels cut. He blames it on the rimless trend, although he has one in his shop identical to mine but smaller and has the same fish in it that I did. I think before I do that I will re-home the cardinal and try again with the dart fish. These are the best I can do. Still learning how to photo in the weird lighting...
I do think discus are way easier. As long as they don't get sick. Then that gets tricky. The water parameters for marine is like a ballet- Or a domino game. If one thing drops chaos happens. So many things to monitor. I hear it gets easier as the tank matures. Thanks again for your kind words.
110693110694

[Discus-n00b]

Get a screen top, put it on when you are away and overnight. Take it off when at home. Sorry to hear, it is likely they both jumped, been there with my reef I understand the pain.

Are you sure the bubble/others are being eaten? Could the clowns be trying to host it and damaging the LPS? Could be as simple as something like bristles making their home in the base of the coral and just agitating it. Or could be the shrimp, never known them to do that to LPS (just to polyps and stuff like that) but they could I guess.

[two utes]

Sorry to hear about this setback Jenene. Take a deep breath, re group and move forward :) The reef is coming along nicely. You sure have achieved a lot in a very short time.

[Disgirl]

Your reef is beautiful Jenene, thanks for the pics. Hope all goes well in there now.
Barb

[Jenene]

Get a screen top, put it on when you are away and overnight. Take it off when at home. Sorry to hear, it is likely they both jumped, been there with my reef I understand the pain.

Are you sure the bubble/others are being eaten? Could the clowns be trying to host it and damaging the LPS? Could be as simple as something like bristles making their home in the base of the coral and just agitating it. Or could be the shrimp, never known them to do that to LPS (just to polyps and stuff like that) but they could I guess.

You are right Matt the Bubble has me puzzled. Something did eat the nem though. He was torn from the middle out. My thought is I had fed him and something smelled the food and decided to go in for it. Could have been the Bristle or the shrimp. The one big bristle is gone. I had trapped it. There may be more but nothing that fell for the trap. I did trap the shrimp and put him in the sump. I have 2 new gorgeous flower nems and I am not risking them. As far as the Bubble I am at a loss. I have been upping small water changes since my Nitrates were just a bit high in the 15 range. I was over feeding a bit to keep the Hawkfish happy. No need for that any more... I haven't seen the clown bugging anyone. They have been amazing since day one. So I will cover the tank with something tonight to protect the clowns. On Thursday when the reef shop opens I really just want to take that cardinal back. He is the only thing that changed. One thing I did learn is that when fish are scared they jump. Something is scaring them...The fact that he is nocturnal makes me believe my theory even more.

[Jenene]

Sorry to hear about this setback Jenene. Take a deep breath, re group and move forward :) The reef is coming along nicely. You sure have achieved a lot in a very short time.

Thanks so much Joe, that means a lot coming from you. I am covering the tank tonight to save my clowns. I am hoping to get the cardinal out on Thursday when the reef shop opens. I seriously believe he is the culprit. Not one fish had ever jumped out until I put him in there. It's just not worth keeping to me.

It really has been an amazing 3 months. I have to keep that in mind. It was just so sad peeling those beautiful creatures off the floor. It will take a while to recover from that 3x over....

Thanks again Joe.

[Jenene]

Your reef is beautiful Jenene, thanks for the pics. Hope all goes well in there now.
Barb

Thanks so much Barb. Hoping to get this high jump trend off the radar for good.

[Fundulopanchax]

Sad news, I have found that most reef fishes are adept at jumping! That something damaged your flower anemone has me thinking a crab - or many - have grown out from your live rock. I say that since I knew that after I set up my tank, there were a number of tiny "cute" crabs hanging out in holes in the rock. Never gave it a thought until a few months later one of my flower anemones had a chunk missing and others looked unhappy. Some of the other things were upset as well, including a pretty good sized bubble tip anemone. I looked through the tank with a flashlight that night after lights out and saw several now-very-large crabs, including several gorilla crabs, which everyone says are bad news. I set up a video camera that is excellent in very low light and monitored it for a couple of nights. I caught a gorilla crab taking a chunk out of another rock flower anemone. I caught a couple with traps but most avoided them. I was forced to mark where they were during the day, then take the rock out and remove every single crab. I thought I had all of them but a couple of weeks later, the good critters started to become unhappy again and I found one more gorilla crab. I took out its rock and removed it and the tank has been very happy ever since. What a pain to remove all the rock, with the anemones and coral on them, but in the end it was worth it.

By the way, while rock flower anemones cannot be fragged, interestingly, even when a huge chunk is removed, nearly half of one of them, the anemone healed in a matter of a few weeks and now neither of them has any evidence of having ever been injured. Makes me wonder if they really can't be fragged..... At any rate, your injured anemone should recover just fine.

[Jenene]

Sad news, I have found that most reef fishes are adept at jumping! That something damaged your flower anemone has me thinking a crab - or many - have grown out from your live rock. I say that since I knew that after I set up my tank, there were a number of tiny "cute" crabs hanging out in holes in the rock. Never gave it a thought until a few months later one of my flower anemones had a chunk missing and others looked unhappy. Some of the other things were upset as well, including a pretty good sized bubble tip anemone. I looked through the tank with a flashlight that night after lights out and saw several now-very-large crabs, including several gorilla crabs, which everyone says are bad news. I set up a video camera that is excellent in very low light and monitored it for a couple of nights. I caught a gorilla crab taking a chunk out of another rock flower anemone. I caught a couple with traps but most avoided them. I was forced to mark where they were during the day, then take the rock out and remove every single crab. I thought I had all of them but a couple of weeks later, the good critters started to become unhappy again and I found one more gorilla crab. I took out its rock and removed it and the tank has been very happy ever since. What a pain to remove all the rock, with the anemones and coral on them, but in the end it was worth it.

By the way, while rock flower anemones cannot be fragged, interestingly, even when a huge chunk is removed, nearly half of one of them, the anemone healed in a matter of a few weeks and now neither of them has any evidence of having ever been injured. Makes me wonder if they really can't be fragged..... At any rate, your injured anemone should recover just fine.

Thanks so much for the reflection on what could be going on. Sorry it took me so long to get back here. Things have been kind of crazy in the house lately. lots going on.

The tank has settled for now. I made a lid that I put on at night. I still refuse to give up on the rimless during the day. I spent a lot of money on that tank and I am going to give it another try within reason. I thought that was a good compromise. I made the lid from screen frame and black nylon netting from a fabric store. Had to do a weird job around the overflow and the light but it looks pretty darned good and was way cheaper than the reef guy's solution of custom making a glass canopy that would be on all the time.

I went with my gut and traded the Banggai with another local vendor. He was more than happy to humor me. I traded for a Pajama Cardinal. Same family but my clowns are back out and happy again.

I did the midnight spy trick and have never seen any other creatures appear. I did catch the shrimp in my trap the next night and he is now in sump jail. I have had no further damage to the rock nems. So things have calmed down a bit.

I would not be surprised if wild things are still growing in those rocks that I haven't seen yet. I will keep my guard up. So thank you for that.