missi

Ok, so I had a couple of fish randomly die last week. One of mouth rot, one that looked to have been attacked by my other guppies. I also noticed that I only had two (out of three) ottos that I could find. Well, as of yesterday I could only find one. So today I decided to just rip out all of my plants and see if I could find any dead bodies. I still had normal parameters also. (0, 0, 10) I have found NO bodies. I have only one otto left, of the three I had. What is going on? Are the fish eating each other? The ottos were not small enough I would think my frog would eat them. Now my water is cloudy and gross, even after a 30% water change. I really hope I don't stress anyone else into death. But yeah, where did the ottos go?? I will test the water tomorrow morning, but I only have two of my four test tubes left thanks to my cat who likes to knock stuff off the counter. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

SammyJ

What else is inside the tank? I lost a few fish in a recent ICH battle and I could not find my blue male guppy anywhere. what prolly happened though is the trapdoor snails got to him and had a good meal. Ghost shrimp and other species will also make a meal from dead fish, snails, or pretty much anything.

missi

I have 3 guppies, 7 misc. cories, 2 mollies, 1 ADF, 1 otto, 1 gourami and 1 swordtail

no shrimp or snails. No ich also. Already did that a few months ago. that stuff is no fun.

SammyJ

Hard to say where it went then. It may have been shuffled into the substrate by the bottom feeders. Outside of that I am out of ideas.

missi

Yeah. That is what I was thinking, but now the water is really cloudy since I took out all the plants. Almost as bad as yesterday, even with the filter and everything running overnight. Ugh. I dont know. I have to rinse my sponges and replace my impeller tonight, since the one that is in there is defective. yay... But hey, at least all the babies are still alive this morning! woo hoo!

GouramiGirl1221

I would do a good gravel vac and see if the cloudiness clears any. I know it's not nice to think about, but in my early days of fish-keeping when I made a lot of mistakes and lost several fish I caught several of the breeds that you're keeping making snacks of their tank mates. I'm very sorry for your loss.

missi

I did a good gravel vac on the left side of the tank yesterday with the water change. Is it too soon to do the other half today? I just didn't want to mess up the cycle.

Which fish do you think are eating the others gouramigirl? Just curious. I am going to guess guppies and mollies... haha.

helen38

i had a tank of what id call normal tropicals, guppies, platys etc. i added 3 ottos and saw them for a week then after that they just disappeared, same thing happened to a male guppy and bristlenose plec

2lucky

Have you checked inside of your filter? Maybe they died and got sucked in.

SammyJ

I was thinking the filter but if they were adult fish its prolly not likely. Even my big canister on my 30 isn't enough to suck in an adult cardinal tetra. I think eaten is prolly the suspect.

50%Inked50%Spiked

I've been wondering that also. I had bought 4 otos and can only find 3. Definately didn't get into the filter!

GouramiGirl1221

Missi - I'd suspect that the mollies and guppies are your more likely suspects, but the swordtail and gourami are not out of the question either. If your tank is well established you would be okay to do the other half of your gravel. I've done a full gravel vac in my well established tanks without any problem.

missi

Black Molly just died in the past 2 hours. ugh. It looked like it could have been dropsy minus the pineconing. He was fine when I left to go get some stuff. I think I stressed them out when I took out all the plants. grrr. I am going to do a gravel vac tonight, and clean out the sponges to the filter. No fish could be in there, because the intake has really small holes. Fry could get through, but that is it. This tank is really discouraging.

SammyJ

Hang in there and keep at it. One thing I have learned is that fish can die due to things even the most seasoned aquarium keeper cannot control. When I lose fish I look it at as an opportunity to try another species or color morph out.

GouramiGirl1221

I'm so sorry for your loss. Keep an eye out on your other guys for a while to make sure it didn't spread. Keep at it though...I promise it gets easier. The first months are always the hardest.

missi

Thanks all. No one else has died yet. Yay! I still havent cleaned or put the plants back in, but I will be doing that in the next few days.