One lost clown

This morning I found one of my two clownfish dead at the bottom of the tank. Something had clearly happened to him physically, his fins had been nipped off, and he had some cuts on the underside of his body...the only other tankmates are a yellow tang and one other clown (the clowns had been introduced at the same time, and had been fine for a number of weeks), and a number of snails.


Water params are all still good, and I had been doing regular water changes (20% every 2 weeks). When I went to bed, all the fish were healthy and appeared to be happy (they always appear to be happy when they get fed!).

I'm not sure what happened to the little guy...maybe he got in a fight with one of the Maxi-Jet powerheads?

 

I would keep an eye out for any unwanted hitchhiker's that may have been hiding in your live rock, Like possibly a crab.

 

I'm beginning to think it may be my Yellow Tang The other clown now has a nipped rear fin, and is having difficulty swimming and keeping himself rightside up. He was fine last night when I went to bed, but this morning was in bad shape.

I knew Tangs were aggressive to other tank mates, but everything I read suggested that adding the Tang second ( 2 weeks after clowns) would minimize the problems...guess he just doesn't like them anymore (which is odd, since they've all been in the tank for over a month). Kind of glad I didn't buy the Coral Beauty I was thinking about...maybe I should just get rid of the tang.

 

It just may be your yellow tang, But it still seems strange that it is happening at night after lights out !! That still sounds like a crab's M.O. to me, But Yellow Tangs can be quite aggressive fish so you may be right. :-/ John

 

I'm not discounting that it could be a crab...but I got my LR uncured, cured it myself, and it's been in the tank for quite some time...it would surprise me if a crab managed to survive all the scrubbing and such that the LR went through

 

I had three crabs come in on my rock. I've caught two of them and the third is rarely seen and currantly at large. All of them were a good inch or more across. That's quite a trip to survive from the other side of the world on damp rock, but they made it.
Darren.

 

It's possible that some members of your clean up crew, particularly hermits and shrimp, had made those wounds on the fish post-mortem.