Electric Blue Acara causing trouble?

[OliveFish05]

Hi! I am a little stuck. I have a 55 gallon tank, planted, stocked with an EBA, 12 bloodfin tetras, a BN Pleco, and like 7 Pygmy Cories. I used to have 28 Bloodfin tetras, but one by one they disappeared. Two days ago I had 18, today I have 12. I cleaned the tank today, but didn’t find the missing tetras. Last water change was 12 days ago. I think the EBA may be eating them, what are your thoughts? If this is the case, what should I do? I could potentially rehome him? He’s 3.5 inches. Here is a shot of the tank.

 

[OliveFish05]

If he needs to be rehomed, could I rehome the tetras as well and replace them with Pearl gouramis and green neon tetras, bringing my stock to 5 Pearl (or other) gourami, BN pleco, 18 green neon tetras, and a school of cory catfish?

 

[Colin_T]

The acara could be eating them but I doubt it would eat 6 in 2 days unless it was really hungry.
How often are you feeding the fish and what do you feed them?

Can you post some pictures of the fish so we can check them for disease?

Have you added anything to the tank in the 2 weeks before they started disappearing?

Have you checked the tank for bodies?
The other fish would eat them too if they are dead.

Have you tested the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?
If yes, what are the results in numbers?

How often do you normally do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?

How often and how do you clean the filter?

 

[OliveFish05]

How often are you feeding the fish and what do you feed them?

I feed the fish freeze dried tubifex worms, freeze dried brine shrimp, live black worms, the occasional shrimp pellet (as I have cory catfish in there too) and tropical flakes. They get fed every 2 days typically, but we had family in town for just over a week and I didn’t have access to my bedroom (the tank is in my bedroom and my bedroom is the guest room) except to feed them twice this whole week.

Can you post some pictures of the fish so we can check them for disease?

Yes, I can do that.

Have you added anything to the tank in the 2 weeks before they started disappearing?

I originally had 12 bloodfin tetras, but over the course of maybe 3 months two disappeared, so I got 8, quarantine them for 10 days, then when my LFS put the rest of the shipment on sale (to make room for the next shipment that week) I got 10 more from the same shipment as the ones I quarantined, and added them all to the tank together (the LFS hadn’t added any new fish to the tank). After about 3 weeks i noticed a few had disappeared.

Have you checked the tank for bodies?

I did that today, i found nothing.

Have you tested the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?
If yes, what are the results in numbers?

Yes, I did. Ammonia - .25 (our well water has a very small amount of ammonia) Nitrate - 0. Nitrite - 0. PH - 7.5

How often do you normally do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?

I do 50% every 1 to 2 weeks, gravel vac every time.

How often and how do you clean the filter?

I clean the filter media every two to three water changes, in dechlorinated water

 

[OliveFish05]

The tetras are nearly impossible to get a clear picture of, but I think I maybe got a good one or two?

 

[Dajuyu]

Great tank by the way ...
I think tetra will be a good meal ...(it will and it can be ) ... better place it with similar size of fish

 

[OliveFish05]

Great tank by the way ...
I think tetra will be a good meal ...(it will and it can be ) ... better place it with similar size of fish

Thanks! Ah that’s disappointing, I tried so hard to pick compatible fish! I have definitely noticed that the smallest ones where the first to go...

 

[Colin_T]

Two things it could be.
1) The guest that was in your room used deodorant or something that got into the tank and poisoned some of the tetras because they are more sensitive to chemicals than cichlids. And the other fish ate the bodies.

2) The blue acara got hungry due to lack of food and ate them.

Try feeding them 2 times a day for a couple of weeks and see if anymore tetras disappear. If they don't, it was probably the blue acara. After that feed them once a day or rehome the acara.

------------------
Talking of the blue acara, it appears to have round/ thread worms (Camallanus or Capillaria). You can see some thin hair like things sticking out of its butt. The other fishes will have worms too because it will be right through the tank.

You can treat intestinal worms with Levamisole or Flubendazole. See section 3 of the following link for treating intestinal worms in fish.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

Good picture of the blue acara too, nice, clear, in focus and good colour

Your tetras would show better colour if you had lots of floating plants and a darker substrate.

 

[OliveFish05]

Two things it could be.
1) The guest that was in your room used deodorant or something that got into the tank and poisoned some of the tetras because they are more sensitive to chemicals than cichlids. And the other fish ate the bodies.

Interesting... It was my aunt and two cousins this time, and I know they didn’t use any sprays or anything in the bedroom, but back in June (when a few disappeared) my grandma was staying with us, and oh my word the amount of hair spray that lady uses is absolutely insane. She would sit in front of my mirror (which is right beside the tank) and do her hair. No joke, my carpet smelled so much like her hair spray and the scent filled the room so much that I couldn’t go in there and had to let it air out for 3 days. I would be willing to bet some of it got into the tank, and may be responsible for some of the tetra deaths.

2) The blue acara got hungry due to lack of food and ate them.

Try feeding them 2 times a day for a couple of weeks and see if anymore tetras disappear. If they don't, it was probably the blue acara. After that feed them once a day or rehome the acara.

Ok! Thank you.

Talking of the blue acara, it appears to have round/ thread worms (Camallanus or Capillaria). You can see some thin hair like things sticking out of its butt. The other fishes will have worms too because it will be right through the tank.

You can treat intestinal worms with Levamisole or Flubendazole. See section 3 of the following link for treating intestinal worms in fish.

Uh oh.... thank you!

Good picture of the blue acara too, nice, clear, in focus and good colour

Your tetras would show better colour if you had lots of floating plants and a darker substrate.

Thank you! I will get some floating plants, I have a bit of Pennywort floating right now, I think I’ll look into getting some frogbit!

 

[OliveFish05]

in the link you provided on treating intestinal worms, you suggest treating all your tanks in the house avoid cross contamination? My only other tank is my axolotls tank, is the Flubendazol safe to treat him with? I used cycled media from my 55 gallon to help start the cycle of the axolotls tank, so I know for a fact there has been cross contamination. Should I restart my blackworm culture too, as I dipped my feeding tweezers in the tank, then into the jar of black worms to feed?

 

[Colin_T]

Not sure if flubendazole is safe for amphibians.

The black worm culture could have worms before you got it. If you want to restart the culture you can but it depends on how clean the replacement black worms will be. If they come from a waterway that is frequented by water birds, they probably have worm eggs in or on them. However, most of the things that carry parasitic worm eggs in water are small crustaceans like Daphnia and Copepods, so the black worms, hard to say, might be ok, might not be.

 

[Wills]

Looking at the size of the bloodfins and the acara I dont think they would be able to eat them. Blue Acaras are not a hugely predatory fish and bloodfins are quite a big tetra.

I think spraying hairspray to that extent would be a big risk to the tank though - maybe some big water changes would help?

Wills

 

[Colin_T]

Looking at the size of the bloodfins and the acara I dont think they would be able to eat them. Blue Acaras are not a hugely predatory fish and bloodfins are quite a big tetra.

We had 2 inch long Melanotaenia boesemani eat 1 inch long cardinal tetras. So a 3-4 inch blue acara could snack on 1 inch bloodfins

 

[Wills]

We had 2 inch long Melanotaenia boesemani eat 1 inch long cardinal tetras. So a 3-4 inch blue acara could snack on 1 inch bloodfins

Wow never heard of predatory rainbow fish before.

 

[Colin_T]

Wow never heard of predatory rainbow fish before.

We had never had a problem with rainbows eating other fish either, unless they were really big (4 inch) rainbows with little 1/2 inch neon tetras. But it happened. We got in a bunch of Melanotaenia boesemani and they were only 2 inches long and still narrow so we put them in a 6 foot tank with a heap of cardinal tetras. We thought they would be fine because the cardinals were half the size of the rainbows.

Everything was fine for 2 days then the rainbows broke into 2 groups and trapped the tetras in one corner of the tank. Half the rainbows created a wall of fish about 1 foot away from the corner. The other group of rainbows went in and killed and ate the cardinals. After a few minutes the rainbows swapped position and continued eating the cardinals. The fish were being fed well while they were in the tank too so we were shocked when it happened.

It was really interesting behaviour and I have only ever seen it one other time when a group of tailor (predatory open water marine fish found around the coast and estuaries of Australia) had a group of bait fish trapped in a man made bay. Half the tailor made a wall of fish to prevent any of the bait fish escaping. The remaining tailor went into the group and ripped the bait fish apart. Fascinating to watch but it would be absolutely terrifying if you were the bait fish.