disappearing corys

[Airli]

i have a fully sealed 10 gallon tank, and so far i have lost 2 corys. this morning i looked my alnbino cat i have had for 2 - 3 months and i can not find him anywhere! there is two fake plants and he is no in them and a tree stump ornament which i took out and checked, no there. hes not in the light or the filter or anywhere. the only thing i can think of was he was eaten over night but the only other fish in the tank are 2 zebra danios. a couple of weeks ago i had a bronze cory disapear in the same way. i checked the tank in the morning and he had disappeared. these cory were not small but 2 - 2.5 inches. i just dont understand what could have happened to them.
both were very active and not sick or stressed, and i know they should be in groups and same for the danios.
do yous think that they were some how completely eaten over night?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How many fish do you have in total? Have you checked your water stats recently and do you have the results handy?
It is likely he died and got eaten by the other fish; they may not have killed him but the majority of fish are capable of eating each others dead bodys even if they are primarily "vegetarian fish".

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

Spooky. Shake some self-raising flour around the tank, and tomorrow, see if there has been any foot-prints left around the tank. It could be the cat.

If you find any fin-prints, it could be because the Cory's have left to find some tank-mates.

Cory's prefer to be live in shoals.

 

[Airli]

all that was in there at the minute was the 2 danios and the cory. tank is 3 months old. havent checked water stats this morning but the have always been fine. am 0 ite 0 and ate 5 - 40

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

Sorry about that.....couldn't resist.

Seriously, with a 10g there is not much room for the missing to remain as such. The body/ies are most likely still within your tank, but are very surprised you haven't found or seen it/them.

Even if the danio's took their share, which I very doubt, there would remain a pile of bones.

My advice is to continue your search and remove the body/bodies, as this could seriously degrade your water quality and may introduce unwanted diseases/sickness into your tank.

 

[colegamby]

thats really weird. did you check up in the filter tube or just the square part?

 

[Airli]

the filter is a tube connected to a power head. there is no way he would have gotten into that. the slits are 1mm wide. the water comes back from a spray bar and trickles out small slits back to the tank. these are about 2mm wide, but i still looked up in there just in case. he has really just vanished. ther are no holes in the hood anywhere that are bigger than 2mm. hes not anywhere, and i never found the other one antywhere either. i had come h. rasboras in there a while ago and when one of them died and just got sucked to the filter tube, and none of the fish ate it. theres just not that many places they could have gone....

 

[Airli]

please excuse my terrible drawing, but this is the tank (kind of anyway). theres no where for them to go.

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

Okay, I'm starting to get that strange feeling that something is not quite right with this topic.......

EDIT:

Typical. The moment I post a reply.... further answers are posted. 'Murphy's Law', as someone once said.

What substrate have you got? Just glass? Do you have gravel, bogwood, rocks? The bodies could be partially buried.

How clear is your tank water? Your search could stir up a lot of detritus. In this case, your substrate needs to be cleaned.

 

[Airli]

what do u mean?
edit - i didnt mean the rasboras all died one by one. i lost one of them and the others were eventually moved to my other tank.

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

Please see edited comment above.

 

[Airli]

regular gravel substrate, water is crystal clear, gravel isnt deep enough to bury anything.. let me measure...........maybe 3/4inch thick. but its not level all over. just had a dig around in it with the net. didnt find anything and stiirred up some particles but nothing major, in fact less thank i expected.

 

[Airli]

i miss him he used to be so active and alwyas be busy scurrying around and sucking ( or eating whatever they do) off the bottoms of the leaves and inside and all over the stump, as well as the gravel of course.

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

They're great little community fishes aren't they. Look like little 'old men' with old-fashioned beards.

I'm now at a loss to find an answer to this/these disappearance/s. Do you own a cat?

Sorry to hear of your losses.

 

[Airli]

i do, i have two cats. but like i said the tank is fully sealed and the cats are locked in their rooms at night ( bathroom and laudry)...

thanks for your efforts to help me with this mystery.