Fish & shrimp mysteriously disappearing - HELP Please!

[Somethin_Phishy]

Hello again....

I've got a problem whereby my pets are miraculously disappearing from my tank. They haven't jumped, I'm sure, but they are certainly gone for good (and no, it wasn't the cat!).

After the shrimp disappeared we pumped out the entire tank and dis-assembled the entire reef searching for the missing shrimp or anything that shouldn't be in there, but we found nothing amiss. We checked absolutely everything before putting it back into the tank, but just a few days later a firefish was gone too.

I don't believe there are any predators in our tank? The existing housemate species are:

fox face rabbit fish
tassled filefish
tangs
cardinal fish
clowns
cleaner wrasse
chromis
pygmy angel
diamond goby
small hermit crabs
various brittle stars
snails
turbo snail
ornamental shrimp (minus 1 now)
lobster looking shrimp thing that lives under the reef
and formerly 2 fire gobies

It's an established tank and the housemates have all been together for about 4 years and are one big happy family (ok, so the angel gets a bit territorial now and then but nothing nasty). We haven't introduced any new live rock or anything recently, so we are stumped as to who is eating our tank buddies (if indeed they are being eaten?).

Please, please, please... Any suggestions? Many thanks!

[ReefNeck]

Originally Posted by Somethin_Phishy

various brittle stars

Ummmm, Are any of them green?

Green Brittle Stars are known fish eaters and will trap and kill perfectly healthy fish and or inverts.

[ChrisPrusha]

There may be nothing amiss. Will rabbit or filefish go after shrimp? What is the lobster looking shrimp thing?

[ChrisPrusha]

Welcome aboard, btw!! w0000000000000000000000000t!!!

[Somethin_Phishy]

No green brittle stars, just various shades of pink mostly, with one black/grey sand sifting one.

The rabbit and file fish are safe I'm sure, besides, they have been in the tank for a long time.

The lobster/shrimp thing, I'm not 100% sure on, but I believe he is (according to my book) a enoplometopus which is totally harmless so I don't think it's him.

One other thing to mention is that although the cleaner shrimp went missing overnight, the Goby was gone in daylight, sometime in the afternoon between 5-7pm so it wasn't anything that hunts by night.

[Loverotties]

Welcome to TRT!Still could be a Brittle star.I have one that I'm trying to catch(brown one).That has killed some of my fish.

[JY13131]

HOw about the lobster thing, could it be a preying mantis?

[JY13131]

I mean a mantis shrimp!!!

[Somethin_Phishy]

Hi! No, he's most definitely not a mantis shrimp (they are v nasty aren't they?). This fella has been in my tank for 4 years and couldn't hurt a fly.

Also, please forgive me, I am new to all this still.... I don't have any brittle stars, I've been reliably informed that they are sea stars (aka star fish).

Still stumped as to what's happened to my cleaner shrimp and my beautiful fire gobies

[ChilisREasy]

whats the largest fish in the tank ?

[ReefNeck]

Originally Posted by Somethin_Phishy

Also, please forgive me, I am new to all this still.... I don't have any brittle stars, I've been reliably informed that they are sea stars (aka star fish).

Ummm, Brittle Stars ARE Star Fish or (sea stars).

[Somethin_Phishy]

Originally Posted by ReefNeck

Ummm, Brittle Stars ARE Star Fish or (sea stars).

Oooops! Now Im really confused..... I looked them up and found this page - http://www.starfish.ch/reef/echinoderms.html which calls them two different things.

The largest fish in the tank is a tang.

[Reeftanker3295]

Im having this same problem i bought a wrass and in daylight it dissapeared and was never seen again, i thought it was because of my damsel because he was hitting him but i got rid of my damsel yesterday and got 2 clowns and a fire gobe and today when i woke up the fire gobe has dissapeared! Help please

[Reeftanker3295]

Also, i dont have alot of things in this tank that could really harm a fish (i dont think anyway) i have a cleaner shrimp, scarlet reef hermit, 2 clowns, and just a bunch of corals and one enemone

[aquawolf]

Welcome to TRT!!!

You may get more responses if you start your own thread, as this one was over 2 years old.

You will be asked a lot of questions as to what your water parameters are, what kind of anemone is it, how long has your tank been set up and so on, so be prepared to answer those and everyone will try to help you figure out what is going on.