My Gobies Keep Dying

[jahouli]

Ok. My tank is just over 1 year old. Ammonia nil, nitrites nil. Salinity 1.024 and constant. I got a boisterous pink stripe goby when the tank was 6 months old. He seemed happy, ate well, and was in no way shy. He did develop some kind of growth on his big lips but it didn't seem to bother him. After about 4 months he just dropped dead. I was there at the time - I noticed he was being a little shy first thing, and within half an hour he was floating upside down and still.....really strange. Everyone else in the tank was fine.

I really missed him, and the good job he did of turning over my sand, so I got a blue cheek goby to replace him. He seemed healthy. He ate well too and loved to sprinkle the sand all over my corals. His weight did seem to fluctuate from day to day though - one day he'd look a little thin but the next he'd look well and truly full. Well it's about 4 months again since I had him and I haven't seen him in 24 hrs - very strange - so he's presumed dead and consumed. He did occasionally get harassed by my crazy yellow tang but it didn't look like anything he couldn't handle.

Have they both suffered the same fate? I can't believe they starved to death as they both ate so well (i add rotifers and copepods from time to time too). I can only think that they've choked - is that possible? I have 90% coral sand and 10% coral gravel.

Any other ideas? I'd hate to add another and the same thing happen again.

 

[Musho3210]

what exactly did you see them eat?

 

[jahouli]

I saw them eat alot of all the frozen meaty foods I put in, but no worries now - 72hrs later I saw his head poking out of the 1" wide, 45" deep weir. After some trauma we managed to get him back into the tank.

HE'S ALIVE AND WELL!!!

Gonna have to manufacture some kind of guard to stop him doing that again.