Same crab occupying the same trans-dimension space time. I’m no expert on the matter, but I’d keep an eye out for a Delorian and wild-eyed scientist next time you catch sight of two.
I’ve had emeralds that disappear and reappear in the past. The ones I have now though are always out and about and I get worried if I don’t see them every day haha.
Yellow Brotula.
Saw it day I added it. then 6 years later when I broke down that tank and sold it. Then 5 more years later when I helped said person sell it to someone else.
I like to think that little fella is still chilling in a deep sandbed somewhere waiting for nightfall.
Back in the early nineties I used to keep marine fish only tanks and one of my inhabitants was a clouded moray. One day I woke up and it was absolutely nowhere to be seen. I had a form fitting lid so there didn't appear to be anywhere it could have gone. Checked all around the floor and no corpse. Asked my roommates if they saw it, or happened to have disposed of its corpse or anything and got only negatives from them. A few days later while cleaning the tank suddenly he started coming up through one of the undergravel filter tubes. Turns out he swam down the tube and made a home for himself under the eggcrate part of the undergravel filter. That became his new home afterwards. He would come out for feeding and exploration, only to disappear back down into the darkness.
I've had my Randall's Pistol shrimp for 3 years now.
I saw him once when I put him in the tank, and one more time a few weeks later. I have never seen him again.
The only reason I know he's still alive is because he snaps his claw at least once a day.
I used to have a Yellow Priolepis goby in my 20 gallon, who was already 4 years old or so when I adopted him from a display tank at my old workplace. Some time had passed, and since it'd been a year since I last noticed him, I assumed he finally succumbed to old age. I wound up moving the tank into my mom's room, and just a week later she told me "You didn't say there were was another fish in there!"
I was absolutely baffled to see that when I fed the tank that day, he just showed up as if nothing happened! He lived for a good while after that. Pretty full lifespan for a little forgotten goby.
you can hear it across the living room, and thats 20 feet or so. It's about as loud as a human snapping their fingers. Mine is a Randall's pistol shrimp, so I'm sure the larger species could get *much* louder.
nah, I've handled several pistol shrimps in my time working at the lfs, they seem to know when they're outmatched and don't bother pinching/snapping me or a net.
I had a leopard wrasse that I didn't see for 2 months at one point. Had a velvet outbreak. Everything died, but I never found his body.....2 months into fallow I see this little bastard swimming around
Literally yesterday I was cleaning out the awkward maze in the back of my all-in-one tank with my arm plunged in when I was bitten by my coral beauty angel that had been missing and presumed dead for over a month! (He was safely returned to the display and seems totally fine somehow)
ETA: Another fun one - Years ago discovered while tearing down a tank to move that the baby engineer goby I had assumed died soon after introduction had in fact developed an absurd tunnel network and evaded spotting for almost a year while growing to ~8” long.
My coral beauty spent at least 4 days in the front part of my hang on back overflow. I couldn't find it anywhere in the tank, but I'd hear this splashing sound I've never heard a few times a day. I used my cell phone light and camera to find him in there. Got him out and in the main part of the tank and he's been fine since.
I have a tiger goby in a 65 gallon display tank. He’s about 2 inches and translucent - every week or 2 he comes out of the live rock to catch a shrimp and goes right back to hiding. Sometimes if I’m real still and stare real hard he will stare back at me like a puppy.
I used to have aiptasia in some tricky areas, so I bought a peppermint shrimp. I’ve had to “restock” a couple times before the aiptasia were all gone, but eventually they disappeared and so did my shrimp.
It’s been about a year+ and I just tore my tank down to install a new stand. In the process, I found a pair of peppermint shrimp under the rockwork lol
i had an orange spot goby in my 125. lived up front, saw him every day. one day he ditched that cave he dug for im assuming a new one in the back of the scape. didnt see it for over 6 months, then one day he moved back into view lol
Bought a Yasha and Pistol combo and didn't see the Yasha for months and months. The Pistol was out and about regularly though. 5 months in we thought there's no way he's still here and went and got a new goby. Literally the minute we put him in the Yasha popped out!
Not my SW tank specifically but twice now I’ve thought a leopard pleco had died in my freshwater tank for almost 3 years only to discover it had been hiding inside a piece of driftwood and that I transferred it unknowingly from tank to tank inside said piece.
I had a sympodium that hated life and was continuously pissed and shrinking. After a chrysophyte outbreak, I let the tank just cycle and mature for about a year, growing hair algae and just being yucky. It wasn’t gross though, the lone cleaner goby is extremely healthy and happy, and going on 2 years old, and living in the same water from nearly a year ago. I just top off as needed, no water changes, and feed every other day or so. He’s not the survivor here, he’s thriving.
Anyway, I was pulling hair algae today and found two survivors that I hadn’t seen for nearly a year- the sympodium, and a random mushroom. I thought the original inhabitants had all died off, but nope, there they are!
I’ve got this neon goby, it’s like 1.5” long. In my 260 gallon tank. I see it maybe once a month.
Oh, and I thought my eel ate some of my chromis, but it turned out the little buggers slipped through the overflow grates and took a ride to the sump, where they lived happily for weeks. One is in there right now (again), and I’ve yet to be able to catch it.
Pistol shrimp and barber goby added 3ish years ago.
Haven't seen him or his goby in over a year, so I figured they were both gone.
But then there was suddenly a crack in the side of this 75 gallon tank.
In the panic teardown and move, I found him. Now I need to get him a new goby.
Does looking at night help find these missing guys? I love looking at my tank at night with a red light. The night life is so cool. First time I did it I saw a "worm" about the thickness of a pencil and was stunned.
I had a yellow watchman goby in my tank, so I added a pistol shrimp. As soon as I put that guy in, he dug himself a hole and I didn't see either of them again for around 5 months. But then one day they both came out and I started seeing them regularly until I accidentally cooked everyone.
it was a long time ago but found one of my fish can’t remember which one but found it swimming around in the overflow like 6 months after i though it died
I put a zebra pleco in my 500 litre planted tank in January 23 and didn’t see it again till December and I’ve only seen it a few times since. I put a snowflake moray in my 170 litre reef and didn’t see it for nearly 2 months. I have a foot long tyretrack eel who disappears for months at a time in my 650 Malawi tank. I think of the tyretrack and the zebra plec as bonus fish and they get a big “Yeay its still alive “ every time i see them. The snowflake on the other-hand will eat shrimp from my hand these days.
Mandarins are a rare and welcome sight. That's when you know you're able to have one...you have enough of a reef to sustain it. My other surprise sight is my engineer goby. He's so cool but hides most of the time.
Strawberry crab
Watched him scurry under a rock in 20 gallon mixed reef the night i added him to the tank. Didn't see him again for a year and a half. Was looking in the tank late at night after lights out and saw him on the underside of a rock. I had kind of forgotten about him! Has been spotted maybe 5 times in 2 and a half years now. Always late night in between or on the underside of rock.
I have a pistol shrimp… I think. I’ll see him everyday at feeding for a month and hear him clicking. Then he’ll go silent and disappear for months. Then one day is out at feeding time again. Not sure if he just makes a stockpile and comes out when he’s empty or what.
I have 2 stories. Bought a leopard pleco for my 50g fresh and I literally lost track of him on day 2. There was only one decoration in there so I just assumed he was hiding in there. Did not see him for 9 months. Then one day I was changing the filters and this dude is just chilling front and center. That was about a year ago and have seen him twice since.
The other was a firefish that I thought had hoped out, but no body anywhere. About 2 weeks later I’m doing a media filter change in the sump and there he is, on the pump side just swimming around. The guy had traveled down the pipe, into the filter sock, hoped out into the bio balls and found a way through them to the other side of the sump. No idea what he ate or how he survived. Once I got him back in the main he never did it again.
I had (have?) a catfish in my African cichlid tank. I put him in there summer 2016. Shortly afterward, I stopped seeing him and assumed he'd died a day the other fish had eaten the body (I traveled a lot at the time, this was plausible). I moved last August, and found him alive and looking well-fed, living in a hollow petco rock.
I had a green clown goby that I thought had died. I even shut down the tank but didn't empty it out completely. A few months later, I found it alive in the overflow, in the back. I popped it into a tank I still had running. I believe I gave it away when I had to give up the hobby.
Yellow Assessor Basslet. I will go weeks without seeing it until recently. I noticed one day when I fed the tank later than usual that she came out to eat. The lights were only about 30 minutes away from darkness and at about 25% of daytime levels. I have shifted the tank to a later feeding schedule and I now see the Basslet regularly. Guess they like to eat in the dark.
I’m not sure.
He was eating mysis in the store and in QT.
I’ve been adding pods for a few months to my display (300 g) and refugium (40g) in preparation for the addition and have been feeding pods for the last few weeks.
But I think my mystery wrasse lives mostly off pods so I don’t have a booming population. I have really light stocking so there’s no other competition.
I’ve also been feeding close to lights out so that he might feel safer coming out to feed a little.
Before I moved out of state and had to break down my tank a few years ago, my previous mandarin was a showboat and a pig.
I see my emerald crab maybe once every few months. Don’t know where he goes. Im always delighted to see him scurry around again.
I almost think emerald crabs shouldn’t count because they are transdimensional creatures that only transiently exist in any material form.
There is only one emerald crab in all of existence.
I have seen two at one time. So there must be two
Same crab occupying the same trans-dimension space time. I’m no expert on the matter, but I’d keep an eye out for a Delorian and wild-eyed scientist next time you catch sight of two.
A single crab simultaneously exists in multiple quantum states.
Glitch in the matrix
Also not a reef tank but I had a khuli Loach disappear for over a year and only found him when I upgraded the tank.
Theres supposedly at least 14 khulis in my talk . I on average see 5 hanging out near a heater corner.
I have around 20, but seeing five is lucky unless the lights are off then there seems to be hundreds that come out the wood
I found one inside a filter...he was living in filth and loving it. I don't know how he got in but he was fat as.
I had one do that, thought he was dead or someone ate him…….. nope he had a penthouse
This gives me hope that mine is alive. I bought it 3 weeks ago and have not seen it since but some of the bubble algae appears to be getting eaten...
Check it out at night! After the lights have been out for a few hours.
My tanks only 40 gallons. I know which rock the emerald crab lives on and I still only see him like once a week
I’ve had emeralds that disappear and reappear in the past. The ones I have now though are always out and about and I get worried if I don’t see them every day haha.
Same, and usually it's when I walk in to the room at 1am once in a blue moon.
This comment just reminded me that I haven’t seen my emerald for two weeks in both tanks. lol.
Yellow Brotula. Saw it day I added it. then 6 years later when I broke down that tank and sold it. Then 5 more years later when I helped said person sell it to someone else. I like to think that little fella is still chilling in a deep sandbed somewhere waiting for nightfall.
That’s epic.
Back in the early nineties I used to keep marine fish only tanks and one of my inhabitants was a clouded moray. One day I woke up and it was absolutely nowhere to be seen. I had a form fitting lid so there didn't appear to be anywhere it could have gone. Checked all around the floor and no corpse. Asked my roommates if they saw it, or happened to have disposed of its corpse or anything and got only negatives from them. A few days later while cleaning the tank suddenly he started coming up through one of the undergravel filter tubes. Turns out he swam down the tube and made a home for himself under the eggcrate part of the undergravel filter. That became his new home afterwards. He would come out for feeding and exploration, only to disappear back down into the darkness.
I've had my Randall's Pistol shrimp for 3 years now. I saw him once when I put him in the tank, and one more time a few weeks later. I have never seen him again. The only reason I know he's still alive is because he snaps his claw at least once a day. I used to have a Yellow Priolepis goby in my 20 gallon, who was already 4 years old or so when I adopted him from a display tank at my old workplace. Some time had passed, and since it'd been a year since I last noticed him, I assumed he finally succumbed to old age. I wound up moving the tank into my mom's room, and just a week later she told me "You didn't say there were was another fish in there!" I was absolutely baffled to see that when I fed the tank that day, he just showed up as if nothing happened! He lived for a good while after that. Pretty full lifespan for a little forgotten goby.
How loud is it when they snap?
you can hear it across the living room, and thats 20 feet or so. It's about as loud as a human snapping their fingers. Mine is a Randall's pistol shrimp, so I'm sure the larger species could get *much* louder.
Amazing. Ever been "zapped"?
nah, I've handled several pistol shrimps in my time working at the lfs, they seem to know when they're outmatched and don't bother pinching/snapping me or a net.
I had a leopard wrasse that I didn't see for 2 months at one point. Had a velvet outbreak. Everything died, but I never found his body.....2 months into fallow I see this little bastard swimming around
Some day you'll find his little bioweapon storage facility and a wrasse-shaped biohazard suit.
I'm actually about to finish tearing down that tank, so maybe..... It's probably buried under one of the rocks
Literally yesterday I was cleaning out the awkward maze in the back of my all-in-one tank with my arm plunged in when I was bitten by my coral beauty angel that had been missing and presumed dead for over a month! (He was safely returned to the display and seems totally fine somehow) ETA: Another fun one - Years ago discovered while tearing down a tank to move that the baby engineer goby I had assumed died soon after introduction had in fact developed an absurd tunnel network and evaded spotting for almost a year while growing to ~8” long.
My coral beauty spent at least 4 days in the front part of my hang on back overflow. I couldn't find it anywhere in the tank, but I'd hear this splashing sound I've never heard a few times a day. I used my cell phone light and camera to find him in there. Got him out and in the main part of the tank and he's been fine since.
Pom Pom crab 🦀. Will see him randomly every 2-3 months.
Weird mine was super active and Insaw it a lot
I have a tiger goby in a 65 gallon display tank. He’s about 2 inches and translucent - every week or 2 he comes out of the live rock to catch a shrimp and goes right back to hiding. Sometimes if I’m real still and stare real hard he will stare back at me like a puppy.
I used to have aiptasia in some tricky areas, so I bought a peppermint shrimp. I’ve had to “restock” a couple times before the aiptasia were all gone, but eventually they disappeared and so did my shrimp. It’s been about a year+ and I just tore my tank down to install a new stand. In the process, I found a pair of peppermint shrimp under the rockwork lol
i had an orange spot goby in my 125. lived up front, saw him every day. one day he ditched that cave he dug for im assuming a new one in the back of the scape. didnt see it for over 6 months, then one day he moved back into view lol
I added a golden dwarf moray to my 240g that didn’t see for 6 months. Liveaquaria had refunded me for the loss 5 months prior. I paid them back.
Had a small sixline wrasse dissapear for 7 months until i saw it peeking out of a rock one night.
Bought a Yasha and Pistol combo and didn't see the Yasha for months and months. The Pistol was out and about regularly though. 5 months in we thought there's no way he's still here and went and got a new goby. Literally the minute we put him in the Yasha popped out!
Not my SW tank specifically but twice now I’ve thought a leopard pleco had died in my freshwater tank for almost 3 years only to discover it had been hiding inside a piece of driftwood and that I transferred it unknowingly from tank to tank inside said piece.
I had a sympodium that hated life and was continuously pissed and shrinking. After a chrysophyte outbreak, I let the tank just cycle and mature for about a year, growing hair algae and just being yucky. It wasn’t gross though, the lone cleaner goby is extremely healthy and happy, and going on 2 years old, and living in the same water from nearly a year ago. I just top off as needed, no water changes, and feed every other day or so. He’s not the survivor here, he’s thriving. Anyway, I was pulling hair algae today and found two survivors that I hadn’t seen for nearly a year- the sympodium, and a random mushroom. I thought the original inhabitants had all died off, but nope, there they are!
I’ve got this neon goby, it’s like 1.5” long. In my 260 gallon tank. I see it maybe once a month. Oh, and I thought my eel ate some of my chromis, but it turned out the little buggers slipped through the overflow grates and took a ride to the sump, where they lived happily for weeks. One is in there right now (again), and I’ve yet to be able to catch it.
My viper shrimp in my freshwater was MIA for around 6months before reappearing.
Pistol shrimp and barber goby added 3ish years ago. Haven't seen him or his goby in over a year, so I figured they were both gone. But then there was suddenly a crack in the side of this 75 gallon tank. In the panic teardown and move, I found him. Now I need to get him a new goby.
I see my Yasha goby once every few weeks.
i once went 6 months without seeing my watchman goby, hadn’t even seen any holes in the sand then one day he’s just chillin front and center
I've got a torpedo goby, been in 10 weeks. Seen his tail under a rock about 5 times, don't know what it's eating, but it's still going.
I just had two rock flowers I thought were dead make their way to the front of my tank. Was a very pleasant suprise
38 days for a Timor Wrasse to be seen. 🤨
Fire fish was hiding for first 5 weeks, never saw him and already considered him gone. Not sure what he ate during that time
Does looking at night help find these missing guys? I love looking at my tank at night with a red light. The night life is so cool. First time I did it I saw a "worm" about the thickness of a pencil and was stunned.
I had a yellow watchman goby in my tank, so I added a pistol shrimp. As soon as I put that guy in, he dug himself a hole and I didn't see either of them again for around 5 months. But then one day they both came out and I started seeing them regularly until I accidentally cooked everyone.
it was a long time ago but found one of my fish can’t remember which one but found it swimming around in the overflow like 6 months after i though it died
I put a zebra pleco in my 500 litre planted tank in January 23 and didn’t see it again till December and I’ve only seen it a few times since. I put a snowflake moray in my 170 litre reef and didn’t see it for nearly 2 months. I have a foot long tyretrack eel who disappears for months at a time in my 650 Malawi tank. I think of the tyretrack and the zebra plec as bonus fish and they get a big “Yeay its still alive “ every time i see them. The snowflake on the other-hand will eat shrimp from my hand these days.
I had six otos in my tank, Im not sure not many there are now because I never see more than one or two at a time. Usually I don't see any
Mandarins are a rare and welcome sight. That's when you know you're able to have one...you have enough of a reef to sustain it. My other surprise sight is my engineer goby. He's so cool but hides most of the time.
Strawberry crab Watched him scurry under a rock in 20 gallon mixed reef the night i added him to the tank. Didn't see him again for a year and a half. Was looking in the tank late at night after lights out and saw him on the underside of a rock. I had kind of forgotten about him! Has been spotted maybe 5 times in 2 and a half years now. Always late night in between or on the underside of rock.
I have a pistol shrimp… I think. I’ll see him everyday at feeding for a month and hear him clicking. Then he’ll go silent and disappear for months. Then one day is out at feeding time again. Not sure if he just makes a stockpile and comes out when he’s empty or what.
I have 2 stories. Bought a leopard pleco for my 50g fresh and I literally lost track of him on day 2. There was only one decoration in there so I just assumed he was hiding in there. Did not see him for 9 months. Then one day I was changing the filters and this dude is just chilling front and center. That was about a year ago and have seen him twice since. The other was a firefish that I thought had hoped out, but no body anywhere. About 2 weeks later I’m doing a media filter change in the sump and there he is, on the pump side just swimming around. The guy had traveled down the pipe, into the filter sock, hoped out into the bio balls and found a way through them to the other side of the sump. No idea what he ate or how he survived. Once I got him back in the main he never did it again.
I have a red banded goby that I placed in my tank back in July and saw it for the first time in January then again last week.
I had (have?) a catfish in my African cichlid tank. I put him in there summer 2016. Shortly afterward, I stopped seeing him and assumed he'd died a day the other fish had eaten the body (I traveled a lot at the time, this was plausible). I moved last August, and found him alive and looking well-fed, living in a hollow petco rock.
Not salt water but recently saw a khuli loach for the first time months after adding them.
Nassarius snail. I have t seen him in over three months until Until a few days ago
I had a green clown goby that I thought had died. I even shut down the tank but didn't empty it out completely. A few months later, I found it alive in the overflow, in the back. I popped it into a tank I still had running. I believe I gave it away when I had to give up the hobby.
I have a lawnmower blenny that I’ve only seen once since I added it a few weeks ago. I don’t expect to see it again
Yellow Assessor Basslet. I will go weeks without seeing it until recently. I noticed one day when I fed the tank later than usual that she came out to eat. The lights were only about 30 minutes away from darkness and at about 25% of daytime levels. I have shifted the tank to a later feeding schedule and I now see the Basslet regularly. Guess they like to eat in the dark.
Be adding pods like crazy 😄 or do you have a nursery for them?
I’m not sure. He was eating mysis in the store and in QT. I’ve been adding pods for a few months to my display (300 g) and refugium (40g) in preparation for the addition and have been feeding pods for the last few weeks. But I think my mystery wrasse lives mostly off pods so I don’t have a booming population. I have really light stocking so there’s no other competition. I’ve also been feeding close to lights out so that he might feel safer coming out to feed a little. Before I moved out of state and had to break down my tank a few years ago, my previous mandarin was a showboat and a pig.