Have My Fish Been Eaten?

[Nemo8269]

Help, i did have a Japanese fighting fish in my tank until this morning now it's missing also a neon tetra. Have these been eaten do you think and by what?

This is what i have:
I large catfish
1 large angel fish
2 Gourami's (m&f)
4 Guppy's (orginally 6 but 2 died yesterday)
5 Neon tetras
3 Tigar Barbs
4 Red Eyes
2 Bottom Feeders (looklike small catfish but sliver)

Any ideas

 

[Jen]

I would guess that the Angel ate your neon. ARe you sure the Jap. Fighter isn't hiding anywhere?

 

[dwarfgourami]

The large angel could certainly have eaten the neon, but what is a Japanese fighting fish? Do you mean a Siamese fighting fish (aka a betta)? Too big to fit into anyone's mouth- could it have jumped out of the tank? Or got into the filter? Or be hidden/got stuck behind an ornament? Or it could have died anyway and its body been eaten/decayed.

What size is your tank and what are your water stats (readings for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates)?

 

[Nemo8269]

I would guess that the Angel ate your neon. ARe you sure the Jap. Fighter isn't hiding anywhere?

It might be its just that i haven't seen it in 2 days now, even when i have thge llights off and have given them food.

So you think that the angel fish has eaten the neon, i have had 2 guppy's died within 24 hrs of buying them do you thinkthis is do to stress of changing tanks or could thay havebeen attacked. The others are fine although one guppy seems to have had something nibbling at its tail!!!.

The large angel could certainly have eaten the neon, but what is a Japanese fighting fish? Do you mean a Siamese fighting fish (aka a betta)? Too big to fit into anyone's mouth- could it have jumped out of the tank? Or got into the filter? Or be hidden/got stuck behind an ornament? Or it could have died anyway and its body been eaten/decayed.

What size is your tank and what are your water stats (readings for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates)?

Oh...maybe it is a Siamese (new to this so i'm still learning..lol) there is a lid on the tank so theres no way that it could escape, too big to get caught in the filter also. what could have killed it? I only bought it on Saturday so could it be down to a change in tanks??

the tank by the way is a Jewel corner tank i think abut 380 ltrs. Haven't checked these stats so don't know. How often should i being checking for this?, like i said i'm new to this.

 

[dwarfgourami]

If I were you I would buy a liquid test kit to test for the chemicals mentioned. If either ammonia or nitrites are over 0.5 ppm, you need to dilute them by partial water changes (replacing with dechlorinated water). Nitrates are ok as long as they are not too far over 40 ppm.
The other thing you need to do now is to read up the pinned topic on cycling a tank, as this contains a lot of important information.

 

[Ddraig Goch]

How long has the tank been set up?

 

[Nemo8269]

How long has the tank been set up?
[/quote)

Thanks Guys, forall your advice i also have this post running in chit chat, new tothis forum so wasn't sure where to post it...sorry

 

[dgwebster]

The others are fine although one guppy seems to have had something nibbling at its tail!!!.

Im going to place a rough guess that this is your fighting fish and it being a betta - everywhere i've read when researching my fish for my tank has advised not keeping anything with large fins with bettas as they take the large fins as a threat to their dominance and will "nip" them down - often leading to the death of the fish.

This may or may not also explain your other guppies.

Details of the Betta:

http/www.fishlore.com/Profiles-Betta.htm

- worth taking a look.

If you are in the UK, freshwater master test kits are £18 from pets @ home, £15- £20 elsewhere and simple to use. tests include:

PH
High PH
Ammonia
Nitrites
Nitrates

comes in a nice little box for storing it all in too.

 

[j.c]

Tiger barbs are known to attack fish with long fins so that might be the problem.

 

[dgwebster]

j.c fishfan: I note that your group is "validating"

Click on the link sent to your email to fully activate your account to enable you to post elsewhere

 

[OMA]

it could be either the tiger barbs, which are renowned for nipping other fish, especially in such a small group (this for the betta cos they will have a nip at long fins especially on slower fish, the guppies should be able to handle it but i would expect a small amount of fin damage).
As for the tetra and the guppies, i would say that the main suspect is the angels. The reason bieng that part of an angels natural diet in the wild is neon tetra. + i also have angels and guppies and the angels have been known to attack and go for the smaller fish like the guppies, i personnally am trying to rehouse the angels quickly

Ps. your barbsare quite likely to have had a couple of goes at the angels as well nipping off some finnage.

 

[Mo_loves_fish]

Watch the tank for the jap fighting fish.
And the Neon Probally did get eaten.
Fish that little are very easy prey.

 

[scrappy]

No ones asked you about the catfish... you says its large and they are naturally nighttime predators... Cats can have big mouths and i wouldnt be surprised if it couldnt fit a betta into its gob overnight as bettas tend to sleep at the bottom of the tank at lights out.

Tho i do have a story to tell about bettas and it prolly applies cos you have a Jewel tank. Bettas are surface dwellers and tend to stick to the top of the tank, however when water changing like most people you prolly take out the filter media for a quick squeeze in the old water to rid it of any debris and change the polypad that goes on the top. Well to do this you have to remove the powerhead leaving a gaping hole that the surface dwellers will see and at a 25% change is normally where the water level is during a change, and cos its dark in the juwel filter housing makes an ideal place to go lurk and get away from the rest of the busy tankmates (male bettas are naturally quite solitary fish in my opinion and tend to lurk somewhere where the water movement is real low... like inside the housing when the powerhead isnt on). They have done it to me many times and ive found them swimming in the filter housing on more than one occasion because theyve slipped into that hole when u wasnt looking. Maybe you should take a quick peek, and altho it saddens me to say it check between the media baskets too & at the very bottom of the housing underneath the filter baskets, youll prolly need a torch as its very dark in there(i assume you have 2 baskets, one for the fine sponges & one for the coarse, nitrate & carbon sponges).

Another thing, Tiger Barbs are quite pugnacious fish and to be honest shouldnt be in a tank with any fish smaller than itself, or slow moving or with long fins, ive also found Red Eye Tetras to be a little aggressive (well for Tetras they are) towards smaller fish. Everyone else has already mentioned the Angels natural diet of neons, if its a large one i guess hes more than likely the culprit of that fishes dissapearance.

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Crap Scrappy, you beat me about the catfish!

What kind of catfish is it exactly, Nemo?

 

[Nemo8269]

Well here's an update i have now lost

2 neons (never found)
1 siamese fighting fish (never found)
5 guppy's (gradually died over a week from getting them, with no sign of fin damage at all, they lost all sense of balance)

1 red eye tetra is on is way out, it's been dong summersalts for the last 4 days. Was told by my LFS to flush it down the toilet

The catfish is a Plec (i think, a large 7" cat fish about 7" long with a tiger print)

Took a sample of water to LFS and this came back as

Nitrites 0
Amonia 0
Nitrates 20
pH 6.4
water temp 75 C


And top it all off 2 of my plat'y are pregnant so not sure what to do there either as they are getting bothered by the randy male guppy.

To just to clarify would i be better to get rid of the angel fish and tiger barbs as i wasnted to keep more guppy's and neons?