Ingchr1, that doesn't sound to bad, of course we all strive for zero losses.
I have about 25 fish in my 125 gallon tank and there are many times that I can't see one of them. I can't see any now. OK the light is off, but I can see with the room light and not one fish is visible. My tank is such a maze of tunnels and caves that they all very easily find a place to "sleep". They dream about eyelids instead of being eaten out in the open. I have to look very close to find them as most places I can't see.
My entire 6' reef structure is off the gravel an inch or so and the fish are all under there where it leads to a chamber somewhere.
Most of them come out during the day, or at least they make an appearance. Many of them are spawning so they stay in a nook with their eggs or their mate.
These Watchmans live in a cozy cave under a rock where they hollowed out a niche about a foot long from the front to the back under the reef. I can almost never see them and sometimes I "shoot" some food in there.
Last week I was looking with a flashlight and I saw them with their eggs in a different cave that they built about 6" from their first burrow.
After their eggs hatched, they went back to their original cave. I don't know why but just the fact that they lay eggs means they are very content, not afraid and as healthy as a fish can be because it is impossible for a female fish to be laying eggs unless she is in great shape and not stressed at all.
I also almost never see these guys any more and I worried that they died or jumped. The right side of my tank is behind a movable wall which is in a closet and don't clean that end of the tank glass.
I had to move a rock there and install a powerhead so I scrapped the glass and in the corner, under the Under Gravel filter tube, there they are going in and out of a little home made tunnel. I am sure they keep laying eggs in there but I can't see there. They live there and graze on the thick algae and mulm covered glass and rocks there.
I had two of these sunburst anthius. I got them at different times and this one bullied the other one incessantly for months to the point where the other one couldn't eat. Eventually they co existed and I think they were going to spawn but this one was always dominant. After a while the other one stopped eating and died. No disease just bullied to death.
I still have this one.
If I see another one I may get it but it seems with this species at least, they are sometimes incompatible and may not change sex or do so very slowly and in a tank where one can't get away they can be killed.
I also had two of these Janss Pipefish. They were young and with this species it isn't easy to tell males from females. This one bullied the other, smaller one to where he couldn't eat and kept biting him until he died. He is rather large, about 7" and he also bit my little male bluestripe pipefish almost in half. I still have this one and he is maybe 5 years old.
(I posted that)
Right in the center of this pipefish, you can see a white mark, That is where the larger pipefish bit him.
Now my female bluestripe pipefish, after that one killed her mate hangs around the Janss pipefish and keeps trying to mate with him. He is at least three times larger and it ain't gonna happen and she seems to be annoying him but he puts up with it. She is also about 5 or 6. The male is pregnant here.
This is a view through the back of my tank after I cleaned it for the picture. It is a maze of hiding places.
We should be talking about our fish spawning and just being healthy and "happy" but it seems most of this hobby is problems and disease.
I am only trying to show some of my methods and people can take what they wish from that and see if any of it would benefit their own hobby.
My tank seems very easy for me and I don't spend much time on it at all except I have to clean the front glass every day.
