First Loss :(

[leighton_87]

I can home from work tonight to find only 4 fish swimming in my tank when I left 5 there this morning.

After a thorough search including a feed to entice it out I was certain it was a gonna but couldn't find it anywhere. After taking out every item I finally found the poor fella in jammed in the filter inlet that he had been half dragged through

The tank is 125 litres and was fully cycled before adding 5 ruby barbs last Saturday. They have all been fine all week and showed no signs of stress or illness (one of them hasn't been shoaling with the rest but he I still with us). None of the others show any sign of illness.

The first thing I did was do a water test and the results are ammonia nil, nitrite nil and nitrate around 20.

I guess what I'm asking is, is there anything else I should be watching out for? Something that could have killed him that may effect the rest or something I should have done.

On a probably unrelated matter Jen I have emptied the tank and turned over the bogwood I can see it has developed why looks like moss on some of the pieces. I this just algae, is it safe, should I clean it off?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Skal]

I sounds like the fish was just stressed out and died( which sometimes can't be helped at all). I think the moss is algae. Believe it or not algae is good for fish, but it's good to clean out your tank often so your tank looks nice. Sometimes fish die for an unknown reason. this can be because of to much food certain chemicals( sounds like you are doing a good job with testing water), or some sort of stress. How much do you feed them?

 

[leighton_87]

I got them on Saturday just after the shop had fed them so I didn't feed them at all on Saturday. Between Sunday and today they have had one small pinch of food per day.

 

[Electric Warrior]

What kind of fish are in your tank?

 

[leighton_87]

They are black ruby barbs

 

[Electric Warrior]

Right, sorry I missed that above

 

[Flute]

What kind of filter do you have on there? Any way that you could put something over the intake that would protect the fish from being sucked in without compromising the filter?
If you think he was already sick/dead when he got pulled in, then I would do a water change and just keep a sharp eye on things. Sometimes some fish are just weaker than others, as long as there are no obvious signs for concern (illness, fighting, stats all ok etc) then I would try not to worry too much about the others.

 

[Skal]

You should return the fish if you can most petstores have a fish return policy. They usually replace a fish if you bought it within a week of its death. ( varies in every pet store)

 

[leighton_87]

It's a sunsun external filter - not the best but came with the tank and seems to be working great so far.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the filter sucking in a fully fit fish - I've regularly seen fish swim right up to the intake and not look in the slightest bit phased.

 

[leighton_87]

You should return the fish if you can most petstores have a fish return policy. They usually replace a fish if you bought it within a week of its death. ( varies in every pet store)

Yea they might do but to be honest they were 5 for £10 so the money is nothing I just worried about my poor fish.