[evilclay]

My first fish, a Royal Gramma died today. I had been noticing that his color was fading, he was missing part of his tail fin and over the last 2 days it had gotten worse. He was doing fine until I added a Coral Beauty. Now, for the first day or so when I added the Coral Beauty they did the chase around get outta my cave kind of thing. Then I would see them and they would swim by each other and were cool together. I guess what I am asking is, could the coral beauty have been picking at him at night? Now on to the other suspects. Could a coral banded shrimp have been the culprit? He tries to grab the fish in the day when they swim by him but he's just not fast enough. Could he have been waiting until Royal was asleep? And finally, the serpent star. My lfs was kind of concerned with this one but, I never see the serpent star move from one set of caves he hangs in. Could he have been eating on Royal? There are others but, I doubt the hermet crabs are skilled contract killers. What is everyones advice? He really went downhill in like a day. I feel so horrible, it makes me really sad. - Clay

p.s. I also lost a hermit crab to "shell hijacking". Turned out that it was the only left handed zebra that I actually got from the store, all of the others turned out to be red legs.

[e_baer]

I bet it was just due to stress, plus he had some tail fin missing. Then when he died, all the critters come and ate him. thats my guess.

[evilclay]

I got him out of the tank before they ate him. He was missing his tail completely though. That makes me wonder....

[e_baer]

I guess the only thing that could have done it is the shrimp. How large is the shrimp and fish?

[evilclay]

Shrimp is pretty big. about an inch on the claws, deff capable of kicking a 2 inch long Gramma fish bum. This was my thought too. He hangs out durning the day but at night as soon as the moonlights come on, he's all over the place.

[e_baer]

Yeah, i guess its possible. "They" always say that a BCS can catch a small fish, ive just never heard of it before.

[dragonboy4578]

sorry for the loss, i love royal gramma's

[jvharding]

It's posible to that the Serpent maybe Suspect. These are cunning creatures most especially green brittle stars.



BrittleStars

And also this link

Brittle Star- Enchanted Learning Software

[evilclay]

i thought about that too. The fish looked more like it was an "overtime" picking at it. It was slowly missing tail parts and whatnot. Thats why I think it was the shrimp.

[evilclay]

The lfs thinks it was fin rot... It adds up after I did some research on it.

[Blackjacktang]

In my last tank my hermit crabs killed my clownfish

[evilclay]

yeah, I think the crabs are gonna go. I also lost my coral banded shrimp. My coral beauty isn't looking too good either. I would think something is going on. Water is perfect, all within normal bounds, I don't know what the heck is going on. I can see how this hobby gets frustrating.

[blind1993]

i think it was already weak from stress.