Fish Totally Gone?!?

[coryhessel]

I was at a friends house for a few hours, and I've come back and my creamcicle mollie is completely gone. It is about 2.5" long, and was 110% healthy. I've looked all over the tank, even picked up a decoration, looked underneath it, looked under it, etc. I've even checked the inside of the filter and all the floor around it. The door to the room was closed while I was gone, and it is 100% impossible for a fish to leave the tank. The only thing that could be possible, would be that the community of my tank (all peaceful btw) ate every single remain of it, as I have not found a single scale of any fish.

40 gallon tank:
4 x guppies
2 x mollies (now 1x)
2 x yoyo loaches
1 x pleco
1 x rainbow shark
3 x ghost catfish
2 x flathead minnows
2 x golden dojos
1 x tiger barb
2 x african dwarf frogs
1 x musk turtle

 

[Faythee]

I had this happen once with a long finned danio, just a little guy. It re-appeared the next day ! I searched everywhere and everything too. I thought my catfish had ate it.....nope.

 

[kribensis12]

Ummm, musk turtle's will eat anything they can get ahold of.

 

[coryhessel]

yeah, most musk turtles do, but my musk turtle is tiny and never tries to attack the fish. its also very well fed

 

[kribensis12]

It's probably just hiding then!

 

[sic0198]

Be sure to check your filter, it may have swam up into it.

 

[GoldfishAttentionSpan]

I have to say, turtles don't play well with fish. He may be well-fed, but I doubt he would pass an opportunity for an extra snack, fresh and still wiggling.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

What are you doing with a turtle in the tank? You do know that musk turtles (like most turtles) eat fish and that a fish aquarium is not the right environment to keep such turtles in anyway? You should read up on this article on musk turtles;

"Kinosternids (musk turtles) are opportunistic omnivores or carnivores. They will eat many different types of food, depending on what is available in the local environment. The members of the subfamily Staurotypinae are almost entirely carnivorous, feeding on aquatic insects, snails, clams, fish, worms, crustaceans and possibly amphibians (in Claudius) and other turtles (in Staurotypus). It has been speculated that the upper jaw cusps in C. angustatus may be used to grasp soft-bodied prey such as frogs (Platt, 1995). Platt (1993) reported that captive S. triporcatus take fruit in captivity";

<a href="http/www.unc.edu/~dtkirkpa/stuff/mud2.html" target="_blank">http/www.unc.edu/~dtkirkpa/stuff/mud2.html</a>


The waste of turtles is also quite toxic to water quality and fish and can cause it to go very bad very quickly, musk turtles also need land to dwell on etc.

I would say your turtle ate the fish and unless you remove it from the tank and give it its own proper housing arrangement, your other fish (and the frogs) will start to disapear one by one too (your fish stocking is not ideal as well, you have many types of fish which need to be in larger groups).

 

[coryhessel]

i've had this turtle for a long time, and it is always fine with the fish. it is also a lot smaller than the fish. the missing fish wouldn't even be able to fit in its stomach. the turtle is only the size of a quarter. that fish was also way too fast and active for the turtle to ever even dream of catching it

 

[PRW1988]

you may not think that your little turtle could eat a fish, that's what I thought about my little RES, I kept him in a 20gallon long when he was about 1.5" and he was with small goldfish about 2" in length. I came home one day to find that of the 4 goldfish in the tank, only 3 were there. The next week only 1 was left, and then finally the last one was gone and by the time he was it had grown to 3" (the fish) and the turtle was still on 1.5".

The moral of the story, turtles don't swallow their prey whole, they tear the flesh away with bone and eat it.

 

[coryhessel]

umm....minutes ago...the fish just appeared. it actually looked like it just came out of a solid rock. its totally healthy, except for one tiny tear in its fin. it has been renamed to Voodoo Child

also, i know the turtle might eat my fish in the future, but i have another tank filled with baby guppies, so he'll just end up maintaining the population.

 

[PlecMama]

should you really leave him in there if you know he will eat the fish?

I've had thing vanish, with a big tank, you often don't notice exactly when they went, but one day you realize they are not there any more. I remembered the other day that we use to have a couple of frogs in there. Haven't seen them in ages and they weren't there when we caught everyone to move the tank. I wonder where they go, when they go? Secret rock door to another dimension?

 

[XPANDA]

my girlfriends dad bought 3 fish for his community tank (cant remember what kind) and they dissapeared within a few days. He just pretty much leaves his tank to get on with things by itself and didnt really lose any sleep over it. He told me he cleaned the tank out about six months later and they had been living in a small gap between the polystyrene backdrop and they rear of the tank! Perfectly healthy but maybe just a little shy!