fish disappearing

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no, i don't see any attacks, as to the bodies, the tank has a bunch of atlantic serpent stars and 3 pistol shrimp in addition to lots of blue leg hermits.i have 3 tanks set up the same way with different corals so i know its not the crew. these tanks are all gulf aquaculture rock and sand. theres nothing else in the tank that could be causing this. the only other difference in this tank is a cleaner shrimp and thats not it.i,ve tried anthis, yw gobies, firefish and now the chromis. nothing lasts more than a week.i,ve had sw fish since the late 60's and never come across this.
 
I would turn off the pumps for a litle while and feed the tank after dark to see if you can lure anything out. My guess would be some sort of killer worm or crab...
Or your angel is vicious and kills your fish at night and your clean up crew just takes care of them that quickly.
 
lost lots of sleep doing the night thing with a red flashlight, have yet to see anything unusual
 
ok, i added a sailfin tang to the tank, a little larger than the flame. the flame went nuts, after the tang instantly! the saving grace is the tang can hold her own. the flame is going to be history when i get home tonight!
 
I also have had an issue like this. Only my tank was small, 10 gallon, with a baby yellow tang. Everything disappeared in this tank, with in days, a cleaner
shrimp, a cleaner wrasse and a chromis, but not the tang, never a mark on him and never a trace left of anybody else.
The live rock was straight out of my big tank that never had disappearances.
Never did figure it out. We lost the tang, he just looked out at us weird one night after I cleaned the glass and he died, boom, just like that. Tore the tank down and put the live rock back in my big tank, no more disappearances, and no more tang, coincedence? Does make you wonder how can a fish with such a small mouth get rid of all that evidence, unless he has a little help? My vote goes for the tag team idea. Good Luck
 
final update ! the problem WAS the flame angel killing the fish. i removed the flame from the tank and then added a sailfin tang and 3 chromis. a week later all is fine. chromis are swimming around happy as can be. the flame is now in a tank with a large clarki clown. she goes after the clown but the clown is larger and puts her in her place.
 
I had a flame that I got from a LFS that did the same thing. I had set up my video camera to catch what was killing everything so after that (It may seem cruel) I killed him. This was when I was first setting up my 54 corner and that damn thing went thru about $200 in fish. I had a yellow tang down the road that did the same thing but he wouldn't bother the fox face.

Jerry
 
I know this my sound crazy but if all you have is a flame and the stars left, I had a problem with some fish coming up missing every morning when I would turn the tank lights on I would be missing one or two fish, shrimp etc, so one night I just sat in front of the tank with all the lights off in the room and the tank and just used one little black light. Well to make a long story short, I had a octopus living in some of my new LR. Just a thought.

Bob
 
Well I was telling you the truth, in the 60's and early 70's, before the banning of coral harvesting was stopped by law you could get anything you could thing of in the saltwater hobby. Today with all the new tanks and filtering systems you really have it very easy. When I started with my dad in the early 60's all the tanks we had to work with were all medal trimmed, we used what was called a closed reverse system waterflow. Tupperware was the big thing in the saltwater hobby back then and underground electric tubing was used to move the water. We were always fighting with water leaks, the mod to the underground filter looked like something a young child would have made. We had to make our own saltwater, using table salt, boiling it then using baking soda and crushed oyster shell for the sub straight. About the octopus is a true story. My day had bought some black coral from around the Christmas Island area I believe it was, well when you bought coral back then you also got the piece of rock that the coral was growing from so you really never knew what you just might get with your order. In Redwood City, CA there use to be a store called Ray's Critters and my dad was always ordering the different fish and corals from that store. I have seen some things in my dad's fish tanks that you can only see in books these days. I am not trying to be smart here I am just trying to say that for me from when I started doing saltwater the whole hobby has changed. I am glad that it has, for it has all been for the best and a whole lot easier. And yes it still is to this day a good true story, LOL. By the way the little octopus was only about 2.5" and a brown color if I remember right.

Bob
 
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