Lonely

[tangeriiine]

can fish die of lonelyness or rejection by other fish? i had a pair of mollies and the male was ignoring the female, she started hanging around in the corner by herself...then i came home one day and she was dead!

anyone else had anything like this happen?

 

[clutterydrawer]

I had two albino cpries (yes, I know I should have had more, but I didnt realise...)

One died..then very soon afterwards, the other one died. I dunno if this was lonliness or whether they were just old. But I've read in many many places that glass catfish have a "psychological need" for their own species and will pine away without them.

 

[Never2Bknown]

I once had a guppy that I kept all himself before I knew anything about fish. He didn't die, but he ended up becoming neurotic. All he'd do was go up and down and up down and I could count his laps until I got to a hundred or so and he'd still keep on going.

However, in the case of your molly, there may be causes of death other than just lonliness--mollies are not strictly schooling fish, so if there was another molly (or even just other fish) lonliness may not be the cause of death. I have successfully kept mollies and/or guppies alone with other species of fish to no ill effect.

One of the most common causes of death among aquarium fishes is fatty degeneration of the internal organs. Fish will die without any external signs of disease. It may sometimes be caused by incorrect feeding--too many foodstuffs containing excessive fats and carbohydrates in comparison to proteins are given. It takes a very slow course and doesn't present many symptoms, but it will finally cause the death of the fish.

 

[love fishies]

Did you test your water, is it a cycled tank. Ammonia is the most common killer in a tank. Or maybe she had a disease that was internal and you couldn't see it. There are many reasons that fish die. I don't think that fish died of lonliness, but I could be wrong. Make sure you check your water with your test kit before adding any more fish to make sure everything is ok, and make sure if they are schooling fish to gt at least 4 if not more. My black phantom tetra was alone and didn't die but stayed in corner of tank, now she is swimming around with the danios I just added to the tank. Will be getting her more of her buddies soon for her.

 

[Guppylover]

Some fish can by by loneyness, for example. I had kept only on rummy-nose tetra in my 10gal a while ago it seemed to be doing ok but after a while it began to sulk and hide in the corner. Nothing was wrong with my water and all my other fish where perfectly ok! They didn't bully the rummy-nose... I returned the rummy-nose to my lfs.

 

[tangeriiine]

there was nothin wrong with th water..this was a while ago as well....evryother fish was fine i just noticed that the other mollies seemed to ignore her and then she started hiding in the corner and then died! weird!

 

[jaimoe]

A few years back I had an oscar fish and a common pleco. Both were pretty happy. After the oscar died the pleco got lonely and kept jumping out of the tank. I finally gave him away to a lfs and the owner looked at me like I was crazy when I told him what was up.