Losing A Bn

[mikev]

... it seems that I've lost one to no good reasons, found the remains today ...

The tank seems to be fine, and considerably more sensitive fish in the tank is ok, no new fish added for more than two months.

I almost never lost fish that has been here for some time (this BN was doing fine since January), especially for no apparent reasons...so I wonder if random deaths are something that happens with BN's? -- or I should be still trying to look for a cause.

(The only thing that comes to mind is that it turned out recently that both BN's in the tank are males -- they took quite a long time to develop the bristiles -- and there was some amount of chasing/aggression.)

 

[littleme1969]

Sorry to hear of your loss
Sounds just like one of thoughs things to me... Yes BN males will scrap, but if they have grown up in the tank together its highly unlikly that one would kill the other. It could have been anything that was the cause of death and if the other fish and more importantly the other BN are just fine I would not worry.

 

[mikev]

Thanks.

Darn. Apologies for the incorrect post.

I assumed BN dead since the remains could have been his, and he was nowhere to be seen in the tank, we searched the tank very carefully, and there was no place to hide....or so I thought. Today he is back.
(The dead fish was a hillstream sucker, these do flip over without any reasons occasionally).

 

[smithrc]

"hillstream sucker" / Hill stream loach / Butterfly pleco

What ever they get called in LFS's are actually a cool water fish, so that might be the problem

 

[mikev]

"hillstream sucker" / Hill stream loach / Butterfly pleco

What ever they get called in LFS's are actually a cool water fish, so that might be the problem

Nay, it is a proper colder-water high-O2 river tank... 75F-77F now, this species is ok up to 82F.

Unfortunately, they do occasionally die for no obvious reasons (albeit this is the first such case for me with this species). I cannot check this further, but this may have to do with spawing attempts three days ago, I saw one of the males after an hour of activities totally exhausted and unable to hold to the glass....might be him.