Urgent - Firefish deaths

Hi Guys,

About a month ago I added my first fish to the new reef tank namely
3 BlueGreen Chromis
2 FireFish

The chromis are doing great (One is a little shy still) however for the first 2 weeks the firefish swam together and fed together with no aggression. One morning last week, one of them was missing for 3 days. It reappeared with its dorsal gone and the lower part of its tail fin missing. Has not been seen since. I put this down to a hard lesson learned as firefish can fight unless they are a pair.

However this morning the second firefish was nowhere to be seen. At lunch time he was located hovering behind a rock as seen from the side of the reef tank. Dorsal fin ok Lower part of Tail fin gone! By 6pm this evening he was dead and was been "recycled" by 3 blue leg hermits. What is going on here?

The clues
1. It only affects the small firefish. The chromis are fine.
2. All water parameters are perfect
3. "Attacks" seem to happen at night (when fish are gone to bed within the liverock)
4. Invert stocklist is Colony of Yellow Polyps, Colony of Red Mushroom Discoma, Colony of Green-Blue Discoma, Colony of Ricordea yuma and some stick polyps. 4 Tube worms/featherdusters also live here and one large brittlestar.

The Suspects
1. The brittlestar - got him free at the LFS and was told he is a detritus feeder and reef safe but is he fish safe! He is black / Dark Brown in colour and hides behind the rocks on the left side of the tank at night.

2. Some other nasty brute that came with the liverock, ? fireworm.

3.any other suggestions are most welcome.

Please reply ASAP. I don't want a genocide on my hands. The two firefish cost me €63 and in anyones books, that is expensive livefoods for whatever is killing them.

Only other visible inhabitants are Blue leg hermits, scarlet leg hermits and 6 cleaner shrimp. Astrea and Turbo snails. Come to think of it over the last few weeks, I have noticed the odd blue leg hermit amputated leg floating around the tank but put this down to the Hermits fighting. But why? I was proactive in ensuring that plently of spare shells are available from them.

Many thanks in advance.
kind regards
Seany

Hi Seany, this is probably unrelated but I witnessed a green chromis viciously attacking a firefish couple of months ago in Seahorse Aquariums.
The marine biologist was stumped by this behaviour but rehomed the firefish immediately, not before it had lost almost all its fins though.
It was a savage attack, I've not witnessed the like of which in any of my other aquaria.

Didihno,
Jesus,It thought the green chromis was the most placid fish you could get!!!!!
I have never witnessed any aggression between the two species during the day. Also they have plenty of hiding places so competition canot be blamed. To be honest with you, I am quite shocked!!!
Could they also be responsible for the amputated hermit legs ???
Kind regards
Seany

Guys,

I did some night time scanning with the torch tonight in search of the serial killer. Nothing suspicious except for this strange snail on the front glass. Its definitely not a Astrea/Top/Turbo snail that I bought! Have a look,



See that tube at the front. Closest match I can get in my literature is a conch snail but the shell is all wrong. However that tube/proboscis looks very suspicious to me !!!!

Seany

hi seany,
that sounds like the chromis alright. i have never heard of them being aggressive towards other fish before but i know if you have a group of them they often kill each other and many people report only being left with one or a few from an initially large group.
firefish are also notorious for picking each other off unless paired. may i suggest getting a purple and a red firefish. they dont exactly get on but the red one will just stay away from the more outgoing purple one. red firefish are very shy. mine didnt come out even to eat for 1 week after being added to the tank. If they are hiding a lot it means they are afraid of something in the tank.
re your hermits: they shed their skin/bodies like shrimp every so often so id imagine thats what you are seeing. i intially thought i was losing lots of crabs but a head count showed all were present and well.
hope this helps
fran

Many thanks Fran,

That puts my mind at ease re the hermits. I'm going to lay a trap tonight with a couple of prawns and see what comes out to play after lights out. Will let you know what happens.
Kind regards
Seany

Nothing touched the prawns except the cleaner shrimp
Seany