Oh dear.... where have all the cardinals gone

[Sparky]

Oh dear,

Yesterday, I went to my LFS and came home, the proud owner of 6 cardinal tetra. I read that they're pretty sensitive to condidtions so they were excluded from the tank in a bucket, and tank water was gradually added over the space of 4 hrs before finally adding them to the main community tank. I went to bed last night with one or two of them looking slightly off colour but the others were fine.

I've woken up this morning to find that only 2 are remaining and I'm not sure why. I'd tested the water a few days earlier and all seemed fine and I'd even done a partial water change the day before last in preparation for the tetras. At first I thought it may have been the heat but if anything, slightly warmer water would be better for them!! I'm beginning to suspect the other members of the tank, there are no angel fish in there but there's a rather large (3 inches I reckon) dwarf Gourami who's known to be bad tempered and a large yoyo loach. Could they have had anything to do with the disappearance of my cardinals?? or is it more likely that they were too stressed from the change of environment??

ps it's a 29gln tank with 8 other platy's and 3 other female dwarf gourami

Hank

 

[hello kitty]

hiya, any fish will eat another fish that it can fit in its mouth! its possible that your tetras were a bit stressed out and so the bigger fish picked on them

 

[IMCL85]

Did u check inside ur filter. Some time they might get suck in to the filter I have like 1 x neon get suck inside before and turn to u know what . Right now I have 9x cardinal and 8x neon they r very healthy and happy in my 25g tank.

 

[andywg]

If they died from something like stress or condition change then they are quite likely to get eaten by everything else (even other cardinals) once they are dead.