My favorite platy dissapeared! He's nowhere to be found.

I returned from a weekend retreat to find my favorite platy, Bumblebee, to be missing in my 10 gallon bow.

Its a small tank with 1 platy, 4 neons, and cherry shrimp. Its not very big but well maintained and planted with moss.

Its small enough of a tank that if he were a corpse he would be easy to find being bright yellow orange, but I cannot find him or a potential corpse anywhere. I even checked to see if he jumped out of what very little holes at the top are available (2 very small ones to for heater and filter chords to fit through). No fish corpse anywhere near tank.

He's not in my filter because its covered with black nylon to catch baby shrimp.

The only possibility is that he died somehow while I was out of town and my cherry shrimp simply ate his corpse to the bone and I can't find his bones to confirm. The likely hood of this is low though, my shrimp, while numerous eat slowly, and I think I would still find the the bones.

I have tried rearranging everything, no luck.

Please help!

 

They may have eaten the bones also.
carol

 

hmm the mystery this happened to me once I had an algae eater I left for a day the next day bam missing.:;ghost

 

I have had baby clown loaches dissapear for 2 months only to reappear for a week than I think he died

Once had a baby loach almost go down the drain. I was cleaning an ornament. And he was were it fills up with water. Well he slipped out and did a slo motion death slide to the drain luckily I my instinct told me to cover the drain with my fingers and it took me a minute to get him away from it hopefully he will reappear. Unfortunetly in a smaller tank he may have died. I would test the water and make sure it is ok

 

Water tested. Its fine. Where could my platy be!

 

our tetras used to vanish without trace.....

 

Hmm, we have had platies hide for a couple days, but that's in a heavly planted 75gal... did you lift up all the decor? Sometimes fish can get under things you thought they couldn't.

 

He could be stuck somewhere I had a baby clown loach nudge himself into the smallest crack in a piece of driftwood I had to drill a hole to get him. Out

 

Water tested. Its fine. Where could my platy be!

post a picture of the tank?

 

post a picture of the tank?

There's much more moss now as this pic is 2 years old.
I've moved everything and taken things out. Looked everywhere around the tank etc. No Platy

Any ideas?

 

I think everyone has had a smallish size fish disappear.... I think unless they jump out, they are eaten. I had an algae eater disappear after a year... my Oscar got big enough to eat him in one gulp.

I think your fish got eaten bones and all.

 

I think everyone has had a smallish size fish disappear.... I think unless they jump out, they are eaten. I had an algae eater disappear after a year... my Oscar got big enough to eat him in one gulp.

I think your fish got eaten bones and all.

There aren't any fish big enough to swallow him whole. I have a cherry shrimp colony, but they eat very slow...I doubt they could have devoured him in a weekend. Maybe I'm wrong.

I checked the water again, no signs of rotting fish polluting the chemistry.

He could have jumped out, but its pretty clear outside of my tank, I would probably see him on the floor, and I moved the aquarium furniture around.

Where did my platy go!?! Do my neighbors steal? Lol

 

what's your pH? platy bones are pretty small......

 

I vote for him being eaten by the shrimp. You'd be amazed at how quickly they do eat a corpse. The other inhabitants of the tank want to keep their environment as free from harmful bacteria as possible so they do a quick job of consuming the dead or dying.

If you do decide to place the blame on your neighbors, don't expect to be borrowing a cup of sugar any time soon.

 

March 27

no platy or corpse (in or around tank)

 

I'm thinking your other tank inhabitants didn't go hungry while you were away.

 

???I have had a few small fish just simply disappear. I can not confirm what really happened to them, but I feel Luminus is right. The other fish make a snack of them quickly. I've never gone out of town when I had my aquariums, so they must get eaten quickly for me not to find them.

 

We had a tetra expire in QT. in the 2 hrs since I last looked in at them he died and only a tatter of skin left. The only other fish were 5 very small neons and a female betta. burp.

 

I don't think my neons could eat a platy if they tried. My big platy is sometimes (or was) aggressive towards Bumblebee but seemed to chill out. But most like I think he bullied him to death while I was gone.

 

NEW EVIDENCE SURFACE

My big platy just died. The one that I suspected of bullying my platy that died that inspired this thread.
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrates: 0ppm
Nitrites: 0ppm
PH: 7.5


The corpse was found stuck the filter covered with hungry red cherry shrimp.
I have been dosing with Flourish Excel, but not too heavy and my fish have never had a problem with. I imagine I would lose shrimp to Excel way before I lost fish.

He was perfectly healthy and happy the day before and morning before his death. His corpse had vibrant orange, yellow and red color—no paling or signs of disease.

I'm stumped.

 

Platys don't really live that long. How old was it? The lifespan of a platy is really between 2 and 5 years. And, you should have SOME nitrates in your water unless you just finshished a big water change.

 

In a planted tank, 0 nitrates isn't unusual. Its hard to say what could have happened without more tank info

 

Well it was a 10 gallon heavily planted tank.

The platy was very large when I bought it a few months ago. So it could have very well been an old platy.

 

Yeah, very large could have been an indicator it wasn't young. Parameters looks good.

Any physical indicators? Funny coloration? Fuzzy patches? Sores? Off colored gills? Acting strange lately?

Or did you go from having a fine platy and then the next time you saw it it was dead?

 

Yeah, very large could have been an indicator it wasn't young. Parameters looks good.

Any physical indicators? Funny coloration? Fuzzy patches? Sores? Off colored gills? Acting strange lately?

Or did you go from having a fine platy and then the next time you saw it it was dead?

He was healthy and happy, you know, begging me for food and his colors looked amazing. He just suddenly died? I am lost. The only thing I can think of is that he was really old because he was so big when I got him, but even then there are symptoms to old age dying.

 

Sorry about your fish. I lost a pregnant female platy today. Her color was great. No fuzz, no spots, nothing external. This is the second platy I've lost in about two weeks. They looked FINE. Then they started breathing heavily and lying on the bottom. Not eating. Two days later they jerked around the tank and died. My other species are healthy and happy and active.

The LFS employee commented that they are having trouble with their platies "up and dying" also, for no apparent reason.

I am suspicious that the platy species is becoming weak because of inbreeding and interbreeding with other species (swordtails). That may explain why your platy was so large, also.

I have two platies left. One female in the same QT tank as the one that died today. So far, so good. The other is a male in a 5 gallon hex. He is flashing some but otherwise looks healthy. My plan is to observe them and keep my water conditions perfect. Not much else I can do if they show no sign of disease.

Hope this helped a little bit, if only that you have someone else to commiserate with you.