How to tell if something is dead?

Big Habeeb wrote:



I actually spotted the golden head this morning...I wasn't necessarily
writing him off yet, but I was definitely starting to wonder...to the
point where I was testing my water twice a day to make SURE I was
reading everything right and wasn't missing something obvious (would
have been odd since the cardinal and clown were both happily chugging
along). It looks like he's just found himself a happy place behind
the rocks...but this morning came out and gave me a little show of him
sifting through the substrate...pity he's not a bit more social since
he's really nifty looking...hopefully he'll be out and about a bit
more once he's comfortable in the tank.

Well my latest addition is a Regal Tang......"she" hid for a couple of
weeks and sometimes I was convinced that she was a goner......but now
she comes out of hiding when I go to the tank rather than doing the
great disappearing act when I approached the tank - food is the
motivator and the association that tank lid opening and me going up to
it normally means chow.....

It has actually been my experience that newly added fish do go through
not only the physical acclimatization process but also a settling in
process and it is natural instinct to hide....


I appreciate the advice on how to know if I got a dead thing or
not...I didn't know if it would cause some kind of detectable spike in
anything, since all my tanks in the past have been wide open and as
such, fairly obvious if there was a dead fish laying on the bottom.

I know exactly where you are coming from here......in fact I'm currently
missing a lawnmower blenny but have no idea if he is dead or chowing
down somewhere I can't spot him......I fear the worst but there has been
no body or any change in water parameters to indicate any spike....I
think one thing to remember is that we have "clean up" crew in our reef
tanks for a reason (and these aren't just the ones we add but the stuff
in the LR) and they are pretty efficient if you have enough so it would
be unlikely to even notice a spike unlike a FW tank....

Gill