Missing fish

[RayRay]

Aww man, you guys warned me about this and I didn't listen.

So I have my goldfish and a couple days ago I'm counting Danios. Only four. Count again. Still only four. I'm missing one of each kind. I've tried drawing them out with food, I've tried searching for dead fish in the tank and outside of it. There's no way around it, I'm missing two fish.

I didn't think he could eat them, he's not huge and the danios look bigger than his mouth. At least I know the rosey danio one was, the gold danio that's missing was my smallest fish. But unless he ate them longways I really don't see how he could have fit them in his mouth. And I count my fish everyday so he had to have eaten two in one night. Plus they're so much faster than him. It just doesn't make sense.

So, could he possibly have done it? I don't know where else these fish could have gone.

 

[Kunsthure]

Have you looked in the filter? Do you have any decorations that they could've gotten stuck in? I had a guppy cram itself into the bottom rim of an island thing and I'm not sure how she did it because my husband had to pry her out. But it is possible that the goldfish did it. I put some 1/2" fry in with my diamond tetras and figured they had to be too big for their mouths, but no, they weren't. Check your ammonia levels for the next couple days and if it rises, you know you have a dead fish.

-Lisa

 

[LyndaB]

It's not even a matter of compatibility issues that mean goldfish require a separate tank, it's more a matter of what they require as an environment. You can't really accommodate both tropicals and goldfish in the same tank and not expect to have someone suffer from stress and weakness.

As long as your water parameters are good, the deaths were most likely attributed to undue stress and bullying. The bodies were most likely eaten by the other fish. I've seen some fish begin to eat a fish that's not even dead yet.

Can you move the goldie to another tank?

Edited to add: I just read up on dojo loaches and it indicates that they may be aggressive towards smaller fish.

 

[RayRay]

There's no way the can get into the filters, the intake slots are so tiny. And nope, no fish stuck in any ornaments. I'll keep an eye on my levels.

The danios can go down to 70 fine and I keep my tank at 75 so it's not an issue of temperature and the dojos have never bothered the danios. Its more the danios bother the dojos when it's food time, lol. The goldfish may have stressed them though, or they could have stressed eachother (the rosey's are a bit bigger than the golds so there's some chasing going on. I figured it was just regular danio behavior)

I'll see if I can figure out a place to set up my quarantine tank and put the remaining danios in there until I can find a store that's willing to take them, I suppose.

 

[LyndaB]

That's probably a good idea. Because we can't watch our tanks 24/7, we can't really say what happens between the various species in there. For all you know, the aggression might begin at end of day, when the lights usually go out.

 

[polomolo]

Have you considered it jumping out of the tank? Do you remember having the cover off your tank before the fish went missing?