my second loss

[medic_eva]

this blows.
my yellow headed jawfish, Deborah Harry (aka Blondie, aka yellow head) is no where to be found in my tank today. no room for him to jump out, got the top covered. fed them their cyclopeze this morning, and no signs of him. at feeding time, he always came right out in front and danced for the food. and no signs at all today of that during feeding. so i tore apart the rock in half of my tank, the area where he made all his tunnles connect to one big burrow, and nothing... not even a skeleton of what once was. i don't see any place else in my tank that has and sand piles to tell me where his new home is, so i don't know what happend. there is no sign of him what so ever. this sucks BIG TIME. even more then losing my Shrimples. not only was Debbie the most characteristic fish i had, it was also the most expensive by far.
gonna check my perameters later, i have to head out to the vet with my dog. i just dont get how there isn't anything left of him. god, this SUCKS. :cry:
eva

[adidas]

have any crabs? maybe they finished off the body before you realized he was gone :(

[medic_eva]

nope, not one crab in my tank.

[adidas]

:confused: weird, where could he have disappeared to....

[muck]

whens the last time you saw him?

[KrazyKuch]

I have had mine dissapear for days on end before and he has always reapeared.....I hope he is just hiding somewhere....Did you check you sump and or Overflow....Mine has jumped into my overflow many times before!!!

[Gizmo]

Mine takes up a new home every few days, when I started looking for him in a panic, he buried himself into the sand and hid in the bed for a LONG time, but poked out his head again eventually, I'm sure he's around.

[danny zubot]

I was just going to say it could be under the sandbed. Do you have bristle worms in your tank? They made a quick meal out of a flame angel that died in my tank. Dead in the morning, gone by the time I got home from work.

[OCDP]

I am not sure if jawfish find holes in rocks... but that's a possibility as well?

Don't panic just yet.

[medic_eva]

the last time i saw debbie was last night before the lights went out. i dont have a sump or over flow, and i checked my hang on back filters just in case. i removed all teh rock from the area she has her home in and nothing there, disturbed the sand with my fingers to see if a body popped up. searched my tank high and low with a flashlight in all the dark corners, and there are no signs of disturbed sand anywhere other then in her usual corner. it's not a big tank, she can't hide that well! gonna check my parameters after i cook supper, i'll post them and you can all yell at me how horrible they are. i'm a terrible mother! poor little blondie.... i have a few small bristle worms in my tank, so who knows... maybe they had a good dinner last night.

thanks for everyone who is being optimistic! but i think debbie has gone to fishy heaven.

eva

[medic_eva]

kay here are the parameters

salinity 1.025
calcium 660 (holy freaking high)
phsopahte 0.5
nitrate 5
carbonate (alkalinity) 100 (so it's about 5 points low)
ammonia 0.2-0.3 (i assume because of two dead animals in less then 2 days)
nitrite 0.1


any ideas? going to do a water change tomorrow, about 2.5g on my 25g tank. nothing else seems to be having problems in these parameters. no corals are closing up or anything. i dunno. i am at a complete loss of idea of what happend.

[danny zubot]

Wow Eva, those levels are a bit off. You must be experiencing some kind of cycle, thats how I'd explain the high ammonia etc. When was you last water change? I'm not sure if these levels would contribute to a fish death but they would add some stress to their living conditions.

As for the calcium (660) and carbonates (100) thats way off. You need to bring your carbonates up to at least 150, (ALK 3 or 10.5 DKh) Leave your calcium alone and it will eventually decrease. For best results on reef Chemistry PM Beverly in Edmonton for the links.

A think a large water change would help to to put all of your levels in check. Good luck!

[medic_eva]

i did two water changes, one 20% on monday and one 10% one on tuesday after i found my shrimp dead. i dug up the old posts on reef chemistry, but i cam a little worried about adding any baking soda to my tank, first because i can't tell what my pH is due to a crappy tester, and because i would have no idea how much vineger to add to make sure the pH doesn't get higher. has anyone ever actually put baking soda in their tanks? i've read that for every 50g you use 2 teaspoons of baking soda. but i'm worried about doing that without knowing my pH level. i'm using a hegan kit and it comes up as a grey blue color and doesn't even come close to matching any color on the list.

any ideas?
eva

[danny zubot]

You could stand to add a bit of two part buffer. Washing soda and baking soda combined. This will raise your Carbonates while maintaining the same PH, provided you know what your PH is at. Washing soda is just baking soda that has been baked at 250 to 300 degrees for a couple of hours. This burns off a carbon atom resulting in an adverse effect on PH than that of baking soda. It raises PH, only it is 6 times stronger so a ratio of 6 baking to 1 part washing soda is required to maintian neutral ph.

I'd stick with water changes for now because so many other levels are off.

[medic_eva]

thanks danny!