Who Dunnit?

[theyangman]

So I come home today to see my fish picking at the remains of my female coral banded shrimp. She was half of a mated pair and was the first thing I added to my tank over two years ago. But who would have killed her now? She wasn't a small shrimp either. Much larger than my male. Now he is all alone... :-(

Culprits:

Large yellow tang
Large purple tang
Medium hippo tang
Fox face
Magnificent fox face
2x bangaii cardinals
11x blue eyed cardinals
2x occelaris clowns
Algae blenny
Midas blenny
Royal gramma
Black cap basslett
3x lyre tail anthias
Mandarin goby
Mystery wrasse
Banded goby

My initial thoughts say mystery wrasse. But it is so small. Way smaller than the shrimp was. How could the wrasse have taken out a shrimp several times it's size?

 

[reef keeper]

Maybe old age.

 

[jeffopentax]

I was just going to say natural causes!


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[saltyair]

Are you sure its not a molt?

 

[theyangman]

100% not a molt. I can see the half eaten carcass still. There is flesh in there for sure.

I did some looking around and the overwhelming culprit is the mystery wrasse. Apparently they have a thing for shrimp and the wrasse is the newest member of the tank. She was recently brought up from my fuge to the display cause I had built a new net to contain her.

 

[theyangman]

Who wants to trade me something for a male coral banded shrimp before he becomes dinner? Lol. Might as well trade him before he gets assassinated by the wrasse....

 

[DerekL]

That sucks. I have a melanarus wrasse and also 2 peppermint shrimp and a cleaner shrimp. The peppermint shrimp hide during the day and so far my cleaner shrimp has made it. The wrasse and cleaner shrimp have been together over a year now. I have noticed that my hermit crab and snail population isn't as big as it was but haven't seen anyone eating them either. I am hoping that my wrasse continues to leave the shrimp alone.

 

[Reef Hero]

Putting wrasse and shrimp together in a tank can be risky......of course some wrasse can be worse than others..... And the mystery wrasse might be one of the worst.... They can become quite aggressive and most likely will always show interest in your shrimp as well as some others too. I have a melanrus wrasse in my tank along with a large blood shrimp.... So far so good.... I wanted to add some small peppermints too but am quite worried they may just become dinner. I was going to go with a mystery wrasse originally because of their beauty and desire to chow down FW but research showed then to become very aggressive over time. Some say they are the best FW eater but unfortunately also the most aggressive wrasse. As soon as I seen your post Tony, I immediately scrolled down your list looking for a wrasse listed and when I seen mystery wrasse, Well that who dunnit lol


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[jroovers]

That is unfortunate Tony. How long have you had your blue eyed cardinals? Does your algae blenny help keep the rockwork and tank clean (I'm going to add one to my 45, for practical reasons, that is my intent anyway).

 

[teebone110]

+1 on the Mystery wrasse


I had a coral banded once, and My mystery wrasse finally decided he was lunch

 

[theyangman]

That is unfortunate Tony. How long have you had your blue eyed cardinals? Does your algae blenny help keep the rockwork and tank clean (I'm going to add one to my 45, for practical reasons, that is my intent anyway).

The blue eyed cardinals i've had for about 6 months? Maybe 5? They are a cool fish to watch dart around. My blenny is SUUUUUPER fat. He helps as much as he can, but when it comes to cleaning the glass, he leaves sucker marks more than actually cleaning it perfectly. He tries though. lol

Whenever I scrape the glass clean, he ALWAYS zips out from where he is lounging around and comes to see what it is happening. He isn't the prettiest fish, but he interacts with my scrapper and that is pretty cool.