i have had fish go missing without any trace

Question
QUESTION: i have a 120 gallon tank that has been going pretty well for bout a year without issue. about two months ago i had a yellow tang just vanish without a trace. now within the last week i have had a lawnmower blennie vanish. all of my other fish are fine and active as normal and so are my snails. i need some suggestions to what the cause of this could be

ANSWER: Hey John,

I changed the question to public so others may read it also...

Do you ever hear 'clicking' noises from your tank?  Maybe at night?  like a mysterious SNAP sometimes???

And what type of critters do you ahve in your tank??? what type of clean up crew?  crabs, snails, shrimp, etc...

IT is unusual for a fish to go missing.. most of the time you can find part of the carcass... or left overs... unless you got a really good clean up crew...

Also, can you tell me what type of system you have, how is it filtered?   etc...

thanks

bill

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: i have a canister filter on it with a pretty good quality protine skimmer. i have a coral banded shrimp some turbo snails and a sand sifting starfish and a tile starfish.none of my coral has shown any sign of ammonia spike and my pair of clowns,damsile and royal dottyback are just fine and plenty active...i have moved around over 150 lbs of live rock to check for bodys and nothing to be seen. the only things that are missing are my alge eating fish

Answer
Hey john,

It's not impossible to lose fish... It happens, although not usually two in a row like yours..

And that yellow tang is kinda big to actually jsut go missing and leave no carcass...  but, it has happened..

Keep an eye out for 'mantis shrimp' as they are a common problem with similar 'missing' fish as a symptom...

They usually have a snapping / clicking noise, but there are otehr mantis that are 'sprear' type, (vs the snapping/clubbing) shrimp


Please log onto my new forum at www.thelittleocean.com  and keep us posted as to how things are going for you, and maybe some of the other members there will be able to think of something that maybe we arent???

Anyways, loook forwared to hearing from you again


bill