Missing fish... is this common?

[BestMomEver]

About 2 months ago, I moved the contents of my 60 cube into my new 90. When I started to empty the tank, I found a long lost chromis in the overflow. He seemed happy enough. Not as fat as the others but certainly not thin.

So a week or so ago, my Naoko Fairy Wrasse went missing. I figure he was in the overflow but can’t get back there to check it out. I decided to check the filter sock. I found a fish! But it wasn’t the Naoko, it was the six line Wrasse. He’s never done anything like this before. I have a canopy on my tank so they didn’t make it to the floor thank goodness.

So, how many of you have fish that you know or suspect are residing in your overflow? Were you able to get them out? If so, how?

 

[Jimbo662]

I had a lawnmower blenny go missing about 4 weeks ago. Last Sunday noticed a scissortail goby missing. On Thur afternoon something told me to look in the external box of the overflow. There they both were!

 

[KirstenB]

I had a lawnmower blenny go missing about 4 weeks ago. Last Sunday noticed a scissortail goby missing. On Thur afternoon something told me to look in the external box of the overflow. There they both were!

Were they alive??

 

[Jimbo662]

Were they alive??

Surprisingly yes they were. The blenny was pretty skinny. Guess he may have been eating slime that covers the inside of the box. He hid for about a day then finally came out and has been grazing constantly.

 

[Brett S]

I have a 220G tank and one of my oldest inhabitants is a female clownfish that I’ve had for more than four years... she came from the tank I had before the 220, so I’m kind of attached to her.

About a year ago she completely disappeared one day. After spending several days looking for her with no success I assumed that she had died and was very sad. Several months passed and I was doing some work on the sump under the tank with my son and he said “I just saw the clownfish!”

I thought he must have been imagining things, but it turned out that she had gotten into one of the overflows... you could see through the bottom of the tank into the overflow and he had apparently caught a flash of orange under the tank.

Somehow she had survived in the overflow for several months before we found her and it took me a good 45 minutes or an hour to get her back out, but she’s out of the overflow and still in the tank today.

I have since covered my overflows.

 

[Sailingeric]

I have a fire fish that went missing for about 4 or 5 months. Found him in the fuge area of my sump once day when I was pulling out some chaeto.

 

[sghera64]

Has happened to me several times. I now have my top screened over with 1/4” mesh and the slots of my overflow are now covered by 1/8” mesh. So far, no more missing fish.

I have to say that the 1/8” mesh does start to act like a very coarse strainer. Meaning, over 1-2 weeks “matter” begins to accumulate on the mesh and restrict flow. I take a toothbrush to both sides of the mesh every other week. Otherwise, water builds up in the DT, and causes the ATO to add more fresh water lowering the salinity.

 

[Captain Quint]

Ah yes, had that issue several times.

For the past several years I have used a cutout of a clipboard to completely cover the OF lapping beyond the edges and no more issues. It is flush and below the screen top.

Just took a quick couple of pics to show what has worked well for me.

Hope this helps.