Friday I brought home a bicolor pseudochromis (dottyback) and a Golden Head Sleeper Goby. The other tank inhabitants are a scopas tang, powder
blue tang, 2 percs, 2 engineer gobies, 2 pj cardinals, 3
green chromis, 2 peppermint shrimp, and a skunk shrimp. I also have a number or red and blue legged hermit crabs and snails. Oh, and a coral beauty angelfish, too.
I hadn't seen much of the dottyback all weekend. Once in a while I would see him and then he would go off and hide again. Then tonight I found him on the bottom of the tank with what looked like a rash or something - like the skin had been rubbed off. I nudged him and he moved to the relative safety of a rock and just sat there.
About an hour later I saw him again dead. He had a puncture wound on his side - a new wound. Just before this happened I heard a popping sound that may or may not have come from the tank. First I thought mantis shrimp, but then if he hit the fish first, he would have taken a few bites out of him, and second, it wouldn't have been a popping sound as pounding on flesh does not equal popping.
Last week I added a fourth green chromis to the three I had bought the night before. About three days later that new one, which was smaller and never really accepted by the group, was found dead with a bite out of him. The big difference here is that the chromis swim around freely and "sleep" at the top of the tank while the dottyback hid in the rocks the whole time. So I can't say that there's anything similar about their deaths other than they both were killed by something.
Any ideas? I'm wondering if he went after one of my shrimps and lost the fight. I know that dottybacks are known for not being shrimp-friendly.
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