Platy Eat Neon Tetra?

[FirstTank]

Bit of a newbie question from me. I had 5 red platys in my tank, 1 male 5 female. And 6 neons.

All been living happily for a couple of months, a fry which is about 1 mth old and 2 more I spotted this week. Anyway, about 3 days ago the male started sitting on the bottom. Looked healthy, no sign of disease or anything, just sitting there and moving only for food. Stopped eating food about a day and a half ago, last night he was breathing heavy on his side and this morning sadly he was dead. removed him from the tank.

Been checking water parameters quite a lot recently as two weeks ago black beard algae appeared (that's going to be a joy from what I've read..) all seem fine. If I do the ph vs. Kh calculation the CO2 is a bit low... Anyway, I just got back this afternoon and one of the neons is missing. Not in the plants, checked the filter (even if the slots are too small for him to get in there, I checked anyway). Definitely no neon.

I know fish decay quick, so my best theory is that he died, the male platy tried to eat him (do they do that?) and got sick from it.... Would there really be no evidence? And as someone who watches the tank regularly (am loving this hobby) would I go 3 days without spotting a neon is missing because I was focussing on the platy? Even though there is only 11 fish in the tank??

Any ideas??? I'm at a loss here.

 

[Mamashack]

 to TFF, Firsttank! Bonjour!
Fish will eat dead fish so it's quite possible that the missing neon was eaten.
What's the temperature in your tank? Both neon tetras and platys are ok up to about 26 C or 80 F. Some of us have been having tank overheating problems here in the UK because of the heatwave and I'm just wondering if it's affecting your tank there.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Bit of a newbie question from me. I had 5 red platys in my tank, 1 male 5 female. And 6 neons.

All been living happily for a couple of months, a fry which is about 1 mth old and 2 more I spotted this week. Anyway, about 3 days ago the male started sitting on the bottom. Looked healthy, no sign of disease or anything, just sitting there and moving only for food. Stopped eating food about a day and a half ago, last night he was breathing heavy on his side and this morning sadly he was dead. removed him from the tank.

Been checking water parameters quite a lot recently as two weeks ago black beard algae appeared (that's going to be a joy from what I've read..) all seem fine. If I do the ph vs. Kh calculation the CO2 is a bit low... Anyway, I just got back this afternoon and one of the neons is missing. Not in the plants, checked the filter (even if the slots are too small for him to get in there, I checked anyway). Definitely no neon.

I know fish decay quick, so my best theory is that he died, the male platy tried to eat him (do they do that?) and got sick from it.... Would there really be no evidence? And as someone who watches the tank regularly (am loving this hobby) would I go 3 days without spotting a neon is missing because I was focussing on the platy? Even though there is only 11 fish in the tank??

Any ideas??? I'm at a loss here.

 
 
The CO2 levels being low only matters if you have live plants, low CO2 is good for fish - so that won't be an issue for the fish.
 
 
Side note about neon tetras.  Neon tetras can be infected by a disease called, ironically, neon tetra disease.  It can be transferred to other fish who eat the muscle of the infected fish upon death.  I'm not saying that yours did die from NTD, but its possible.  I don't know that platys can be infected with it, but some fish other than NTD can be (they call it NTD, as it was first discovered in neon tetras, not because it is unique to them).

 

[FirstTank]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I am having trouble with temp during the heat -- more like 28-30. Heater is off and water changes help a bit, but don't want to do anything too big on a change to give fish a shock... Tank is about as cool as I can get it.

It is a live planted tank (hence the bb algae). Nice to know the fish don't really mind about co2