I used to have two of them.
I was feeding and cleaning the tank this morning and I notice that there is now only one tiger left in the tank.
Look around on the floor, nothing.
Search the tank from top to bottom, no forensic evidence whatsoever.
Cats are qaurantined in the basement and have been so for months now (relax, it’s a finished basement, nicer than the upstairs).
I just made a headcount last week, two tiger barbs, one neon tetra, two loaches, one red finned shark, one iridescent shark and three blue gourami.
Ten fish.
This morning I’ve got nine, and only one tiger barb. These fish have been living happily together for over a year without incident.
What do you suppose happened to him?
I’ve never had a fish disappear before, have you?
PS, I looked everywhere; around the tank, under the structure, in the filter, behind and around the tank, all over the floor, all the corners where checked, and no floaters where found either, - nothing.
What has happened with our tanks is quite often when a fish dies, it’s cannibalized. We will catch it only if we happen to be in the room and see it happen.
Throw me in for a vote of eaten. Tropical fish of verious types have plenty of health problems we never see that can be immediately lethal, strokes, heart problems, etc. They usually only live a few years anyway so a fish you have had for a year or so could be getting up there age wise.
That said I had a 60 gallon tank with 12 assorted tropicals in it and I was quite happy. Then every couple weeks one would disappear. Little did I realize when I bought that cute little 3 inch amazon redtail catfish that he would eventually be the lone inhabitant of the tank at 14" in length.
I have had fish disappear and even had a fish appear once.
All the fish in my tank are small and gentle, so the cannibalism theory seemed unlikely, especially since it had been such a short time since I last saw the missing fish.
Months later I found out that the missing fish were in the tank all along. They had died of natural causes and laid their bodies to rest in places I couldn’t see, either well hidden in the fake plants or behind the fake driftwood. There was no evidence that any of them had been even nibbled on by the others.
I’m currently missing the largest of my 3 angels in my 55.
Believe me, that sucker was too big to be eaten that quickly.
But it can be hard to find fish in a heavily planted tank.
Gonna do tank maintenance later today.
He’s probably dead under some wood, or tangeled up in some plants.
Or else he jumped out and the dog ate him.
Angels seemed particularly tasty to the tinfoil barbs in our 55 gallon tank, we think it was because of the trailing fins. The big scary barb died, and angels did okay after that.
You know, once when I was a kid, I couldn’t find a fish and thought it had been eaten or whatever. One day, I found a piece of fish jerky behind the tank, which was well-covered and everything. Sometimes they can’t stand it anymore, I guess.
I’ve had jumpers that I’ve found on the floor, I’ve had filter fodder, I’ve had fishie fodder, and I’ve found completely intact skelital fishies in the gravel while cleaning. My guess is that one of those things happened.
If you find a jumper soon enough, and put it in water, it sometime comes back to life :eek:
My roommate had a very small tank with a catfish and three tiger barbs. One day, we were sitting on her bed watching TV, and we noticed that there were only two. After cleaning her room and the tank, we decided he had ascended to fishy heaven. A few days later, I noticed a strange smell in her room. Our little friend was beneath a laundry hamper that was flush with the ground! I’ll never understand how he did that. But there was lots of laundry being done that day, I’ll tell you that. shudder
And that’s why a lot of pet stores won’t sell the redtail catfish anymore. They simply grow too fast and they’re aggressive as hell. I once had one that started out about the size of my thumb and ended up so big he couldn’t reliably turn around inside my 150-gallon tank. It ate everything that moved. Pet stores rarely tell casual aquarists that redtails can end up as big as they are.
