Magic Fish!

[fredbygrace]

I have a 29 gallon tank with a 4-5 -inch upside down catfish, a 2-3 inch red-tail shark, small cory cat, 1 brilliant rasbora, one dwarf gourami, and 2 zebra danios. over the past two months I have had several fish disappear! 4 danios, 3 rasboras, a couple bloodfins, and even a small pleco! I watch my tank everyday at least once. I can never find their dead bodies!!! I look every where! even behind the tank and they're not there. the red tail usually chases the smaller fish but I have never seen him actually hurt any of them. the upside down catish hides all day and comes out at night and is the only fish big enough for me to think he could eat these fish. do you think he is the culprit??? It seems unreasonable that the redtail would be able to completely eat these fish. and the dwarf gourami is so peaceful around them.

 

[WILDER]

Well a red tailed shark really needs a 40gal tank as there aggressive and need there own terrority does he have caves to hide in.
I would put it down to the red tailed shark.

http/www.solodvds.com/aquarium.asp?Name=...Shark&ID=16

 

[fredbygrace]

Well a red tailed shark really needs a 40gal tank as there aggressive and need there own terrority does he have caves to hide in.
I would put it down to the red tailed shark.

http/www.solodvds.com/aquarium.asp?Name=...Shark&ID=16

I don't have a bigger tank to put the red tail in. I do have a 20 galllon long with three convict cichlids that has a couple caves but I don't think they would tolerate the shark, do you? I'm hoping the convicts will breed too, so that would probably make matters worse. please advise...

 

[Breeze7050]

My best advice would be to re-home the RTS - as stated, they are generally agressive, can and will eat your other fish and get too big for a medium size tank. It kind of sucks, but I think its your best bet - if not you are going to end up with only 1 fish and still a tank a bit too small.
If you do re-home him, then you could add some more fish to your aquarium and make it a community tropical tank! It would look great if you upped the numbers of your schooling fish!
As for the convicts - don't put the shark in there if you want them to breed, it will just cause problems and that tank is also too small for him.
Hope this helps and welcome to the forums!