Missing fish

K, I changed my sand and I didnt take the fish out or hte live rock, just worked on one side, then the other... then I put my fresh limestone sand in and wouldnt you know milkwater Anyway its cleared enough at this point that I can see everything in the tank from all sides, but I notice that 3 fish are missing... A 3-4" juvi engineer goby and two 1" blue damsels... I havent gone about moving the rocks around or anything like that but the engineer isnt very good at hiding at all being black with all white sand and mostly white rocks. I checked in the sump as I found the engineer in there once before and I dont see anything, nor is there any signs of carpet surfing.

I dont THINK i could have buried fish under sand, and even if i did, wouldnt they be able to get out? the sand bed is like an 1-1/2 inches at most.

Any ideas on disappearing fish?

I'm strongly strongly considering getting african cichlids and leaving this salt stuff for those with more <time, money, patience, etc>

 

How long have they been missing? They are most likely just hiding. The engineer could very well have burrowed into the fresh new sand to relax.

Don't give up!

 

I hope you're right. I changed the sand last night, today it's clear enough to see 1 yellow tail blue damsel (but he's been around the longest and he's kinda dumb) swimming around. My hermits are happy to find all the new shells i got them (one in particular I saw try on several, thats interesting to watch). The other 2 damsels may be in holes in the rocks, and if they're gone <ill say it> they're just damsels, but my engineer i was getting really attached to my """I's not an eel honey, its a fish, see they book says its a fish because its teeth dont fold back"""

 

I have a diamond goby that disappeard about a week ago! I don't know what happened. I'm bummed cuz he was so cute. All my other fish are perfectly fine so I doubt theres anything wrong with the water, and I don't have any violent fish in there. Sucks