Fish Disappearing act strikes again

**cairocks** · 4th Sep 2008, 14:29

Last night, I notice that one of my angles is not in sight from my 2 ft tank. Thought it was hiding somewhere so did not really bother about it until just now when I feed my fish, it still did not appear to eat. Did a search throughout the tank, flipping through the plants and also the area around the tank but fail to find any trace of it. It's only a 2 ft tank and a angle fish isn't exactly a small fish. Totally puzzled where can it vanish to.

**meerkat** · 4th Sep 2008, 15:48

jumped out?

**khtee** · 4th Sep 2008, 16:18

stuck between rocks?

**meerkat** · 4th Sep 2008, 17:34

Can emphatise with you. My case some time back when I started keeping fishes was the 20 neons bought from a LFS that got withered down to 5 or 6 ultimately for no apparent reason. True, some did die unfortunately but the rest just simply vanised! No way they could jump out because there was a hood and the other fishes are non-aggressive types like rummy noses and cherry barbs.

Funny thing is when I started keeping slightly aggressive ones like golden barbs and SAEs (they do get aggressive once bigger size!), my subsequent additions of neons seemed ok and I did not lose them.

**cairocks** · 4th Sep 2008, 19:13

It's really strange. Everytime its the relatively larger fishes that disappears. Last time was a siamese algae eater. Searched everywhere including the floor around the tank area. Turned over the rocks and driftwood, no sight of the fish at all. Maybe house have phantom cat.

**Verminator** · 5th Sep 2008, 07:17

I don't have any issues with dissapearing fish, just daredevil fish. My pleco likes to somehow get into my small livebearer fish trap, and then when he gets fed up gets out. I've never seen him in the act of doing so, i just come home from work and hes frantically swimming around trying to get out. Thing is for him to get in or out he has to breach the surface of the water and climb/jump over the lip of the container (about 1inch above water surface) Hmmmm?

Only thing i've ever had dissapear is a Yamato shrimp, which would decompose very quickly.

You don't have anything in your tank such as Yamatop shrimps do you, or a crab perhaps, maybe even a pleco of sorts? These are all capeable of devouring a fish carcass easily out of sight over a day or so without you knowing. My shrimps and plec can easily combine to dour a 3inch cichlid in a day. Once had a German blue ram cichlid die on me, i was in a rush so left it in the tank till i got back from work 9 hours later - and it was gone

Checked with other house occupants, no one touched my tank - simply vanished (eaten i guess)

**meerkat** · 5th Sep 2008, 14:18

Agree Yamato shrimps are very efficient scavengers. So is the common Ghost shrimps which I had kept previously as I have witnessed them stripping a dead neon to bones within half a day. In fact I would think all shrimps/crayfishes are very capable "cleaners" as they go around scurrying for food whole day.

**muakmuak** · 5th Sep 2008, 15:08

ya... saw my rummynose and cheery barb eating up a dead rummy last night when I got home... guess not only the shrimps are scavengers..

**meerkat** · 5th Sep 2008, 15:59

And not forgetting the mighty crabs too! They absolutely love decaying food like rotting carcasses, fish or otherwise...

**bossteck** · 5th Sep 2008, 16:07

Maybe you have kingfisher flying into your home?

**BFG** · 5th Sep 2008, 19:01

Do you have any yamato in that tank. They could pick clean carcass till only the bones are left.

**cairocks** · 5th Sep 2008, 19:51

There are no shrimps in my tank, mainly because there are anglefishes. The anglefish really gets excited when shrimps are around. Goes into attack/ambush mode and will clear the tank of shrimps within hours. Either the shrimps all got eaten up or will all jump out of the tank trying to escape them. Humm...maybe the ghost of the shrimps came back for revenge. hahaha.

The most successful shrimp I manage to put in last time were 2 red claw shrimps. They manage to even give birth to 20+ baby shrimps and all hide among the mosses. But when the babies grew to about one inch, the anglefishes "discovered" their presence and cleared them all within a week.

Now there seems to be "war" in the tank. The leftover single angle fish is fighting with the single crown louch in the tank all day. Either the anglefish attack the crown louch or the other way round. And the 2 male congo tetras are also fighting each other. Seems the pecking order of the tank had been disrupted.

**sen_jie** · 8th Sep 2008, 10:03

don;t rule out the chances of your fishes being eaten by gecko(home lizards)

i have seen it with my own eyes a house lizard about the size of 4inch +/- waiting at the surface of my tank, "fishing" betta juveniles! amazing!

**Tony** · 8th Sep 2008, 10:41

Wow!! Lizards? Hmm... I have 1 - 2 missing galaxies in their species tank gone without trace.

**antitrust** · 8th Sep 2008, 11:40

i do get a lot of missing neons from time to time. i've bought at least 20 over the past 3 months but there's only 2 left now. classic symptoms they display before disappearing includes isolation and constant hiding. strangely, however, they still continue feeding as per normal until they just drop dead.

but i think the ultimate question is how do their carcasses vanish within half a day or so... that, i still have not found any possible explanations in my tank of non-scavenging fish..

**hanna** · 8th Sep 2008, 11:42

jumpy fishie? my harlequin rasboras like to jump every now and then... & 1 of them got stuck on the home-made netting that I placed on the top of my tank.

(silly version: your angel fish... became an angel :P:P )