Help Tetras Dissappearing Overnight Help

Hey all,

Background: 29g tank, 5 danios, 6 neon tetras (well lost 3 tonite ;( , 1 three spot gourami and 1 Eb acara. The tank has been well established and running from a year.

4 days back 1 of my 6 tetras suddenly went missing, checked the whole tank, did not find it. Yesterday night when I looked at the tank at 11 pm before going to bed, all fish were doing ok. 10 am in the morning there were only 3 tetras. One of them has a white build up underneath its top fin on the blue part (like a white rash). Again took off 40% of water, checked all ornaments, no clue of those missing tetras. They were extremely healthy and been in the tank from almost a year. All other fish are extremely healthy too.
Now my theory is: the first tetra died due to some illness then the other tetras ate it and got neon tetra disease and died? I'm seriously worried coz I dont want my remaining 3 tetras to die too. I don't get what went wrong, everything been running smoothly with no deaths in last 1 year, and now suddenly 3 fish dead in 3 days!!?? Please help me. Also, when I did wc to loom for those tetras, I found a weird transparent white colored pieces floating around near gravel, very similar to human saliva but transparent (definitely not fins, lil bigger and odd shaped than tetras fins). Also, the EB acara is still very young and very peaceful too, no chance it ate the teras, besides, the Acara is still barely 3" long. Please help me!!!!! I really don't want rest of my tetras, and potentially all the fish in the tank to die. Could this be NTD or fungal infection???

pH : 7.8
Ammonia : 0
Nitirite : 0
Nitrate : 15
Temp : 74.2

Thank you so much!!

 

a photo of the white patch may be handy. does it look fuzzy? are they eating properly? how is their poo? white & stringy or normal?

the slimy bits sound sadly like what's left of your other missing fish... just a theory tho :/

 

hey, thx for the quick reply!! Yeah, they have been eating normally, even the ones who died were acting and eating totally normal. Poop seems fine to me. Uhh I mean I still can't wrap my head around the fact that how can 2 healthy tetras be dead and eaten all in just 7 hours?? But well I cant find them anywhere so that's the only theory that makes sense. But i am much more worried about all my other fishes at this stage. I can send the photo tomorrow morning since the lights in my tank are already off right now.

 

OMG ANOTHER 2 TETRAS GONE 1 HOUR AFTER I POSTED THIS THREAD. Again, absolutely no clue where they went. Checked everywhere, no trace of them whatsoever. Its like there just disappearing one after another. Like they were literally swimming around normally 1 hour back, and now, GONE????? 3 days back i had 6 tetras, now I have one, please please please help me. This is like a chain reaction, I am scared it might wipe out my whole tank

 

are you quite sure they're not stuck against your filter intake or even sucked into your filter? or in between grass or decorations? half buried in substrate?

if you're sure then I suspect your EB acara I know it's small but fish don't disappear into thin air... although several of us believe there's an aquarium vortex that takes them into another dimension one FL member lost a shrimp & another found an extra shrimp... lolz

 

Is the Acara big enough to eat them?

 

I have like the sponge thing on my filter intake, although i still checked the filter and its clear. Also, I took out all ornaments and checked the gravel, no sign....Uhh i mean a 3” juvenile acara eating a 2” fully grown tetras virtually seem impossible....i checked the acara either ways, it dosent look fat at all, normal size? As far as I have observed, tetras were almost none existent to acara either ways...

Its barely 3” juvenile...and my tetras were fully grown 2”. Also, tetra and acara really never interacted....also, wouldnt the acara look fat if it ate them?

 

Then that won't be the issue here

 

I'm stumped but I'm not an expert. I'm so sorry not to be able to help more atm. a photo when you can would be good but also there are very experienced others on the forum who i hope jump in quickly for you!

 

The only thing I can assume is that after the first tetra “somehow” died, others fed on him and got NTD. But this solwly wiping out my whole tank . Is there anything I can do something to buy me some time until i fgure out whats wrong?

 

All fish get NTD, not only neons !

 

Its 2 am rn, will send the photo first thing tommtow morning, but i have 1 tetra alive atm, idek if it would alive by tommrow morning, i have lost all hopes at this stage, I feel so bad rn, all i can do is watch my tank wiped out one after another

Man plz help me, im totally lost, idek whats going on anymore. Everything was fine until thursday, than 5 fish dead, from which 4 died today....

 

I’m so so sorry you’ve lost so many so unexpectedly! I hope the pic will help identify the problem.

 

It is very hard to say what it is. Looks to f neon-specific ("glad" about that) which is so often te case.

Keep the water clean and keep an eye on the other fish

 

Think it's the Acara. Kinda almost like some type of "fish species profiling", but if this were Clue, and if I were the Butler, I'd certainly say: it'd be, The Acara...in the tank...with his mouth. The reason I say that is, years a go, I had a 3 inch Firemouth eat 2 of my Cardinals once. And I caught him in the act once as well! : (

 

Does your tank have a cover? If not, have you checked the area surrounding the tank?
See what I found when I sweeped the back of the tank stand back then:


If your tank is covered then the most probable cause of the disappearance is that they were eaten.

 

That's a Paracheirodon dehydrati !

 

hey guys, sorry for not replying yesterday, I got really busy with a college project. Although, when i went to take a picture of the remaining 1 tetra yesterday morning it was missing too, and I didn't find it anywhere either. The Acara definitely didn't kill this last one bc I separated the Acara to a 10g qt tank Saturday night after so many people said that the acara might be the culprit. So now its kinda proven it isn't the Acara...Really weird, it's like they all disappearing into thin air. 6 tetras gone in 3 days, no clue where...I just hope all other fish would be ok. Should I add any medications?? All other fish look extremely healthy though.

Thanks for all the help guys, RIP Tetras 2016-18

 

I’m sorry you lost them all.
Good luck with the other fish. May they be well.

 

Personally, I would have suspected the three spot gourami before the Acara. Could have been both of them.