# Disappearing Fish



## CmdrSlack (Oct 12, 2010)

This is by far the strangest thing I've seen for a while. 

I have a 30 gal bealsbob-themed tank. Currently living in the tank:

7 zebra danio
4 harlequin tetras
1 flame dwarf gourami
1 red tailed shark
1 yo yo loach
1 oto cat (had a smaller one, but he disappeared a long time ago...never found a dead fish)
1 yellow killifish 

I just added the gourami to the tank. At the same time, I added 8 neon tetras...I figured a smaller schooling fish wouldn't have much of an impact on the tank overall.

After one night, I could only find 6 neons. No bodies.
The next day, I was down to four.
Today, I get home from work, and I'm down to three. 

I have no idea what's happening to these guys. It's not like I have any aggressive fish in the tank. The RTS is the most shy and mellow fish of the bunch. 

I assume someone is eating them, I just can't imagine that it's the RTS given how she behaves.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Tetras disappear quite often. They are very fragile fish and you may only catch a head or part of a body as evidence that they have passed, and even less than that if you've got any hungry fish that don't mind munching on a dead carcass.


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## CmdrSlack (Oct 12, 2010)

It just seems so....odd.

I guess it could also be the LFS. I bought a blue dwarf gourami, a dwarf flame gourami, and the 8 tetras on the same day....the blue guy passed in a couple of days. Perhaps it was the fish. 

I still have no idea where the tiny guys went. I've never seen dead fish in the tank that looked as if they'd been nibbled. I am pretty sure the tank residents aren't corpse eaters. 

On the other hand, my 10 gal tetra tank w/ 6 various tetras (searpe, red eye and black skirt), two bamboo shrimp and a Chinese algae eater has had some dead, half-eaten tetras in the past.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

A dead fish starts to decompose and loose color within just a few hours. Combine that with 1-2 fish munching on them and you could have a fish in pieces in just a few minutes. Neons are a pretty small fish. Your Gourami or your shark could be killing them. My Gourami is very territorial. My experience with them, I'd say your tank is a little overcrowded for the size of it, for the Gourami to be in there. Your experience could differ.


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## SergioTheFishGuy (Feb 9, 2011)

I would check your intake valve, behind logs/rocks/whatever other decor you have. Tetras nowadays have a wierd way of dieing when there seems to be nothing wrong with the water itself. Recently I bought 6 cardinal tetras for my >20mg nitrate discus tank, and when 2 randomly disappeared overnight, I scoured the tank for a possible body since my discus are in no wayshapeorform predators. Turns out they somehow got trapped behind my Co2 injection faceplate grid thingy and started decomposing very quickly so I had to remove the entire bloody grid.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Do you have a hood?Tetras do jump,and if someone is getting nippy they could be trying to escape,and plummeting to their deaths.If you have dogs or cats,I highly doubt you would find the carcasses that way too.They love little fishes to snack on.


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