Should I be concerned?

[SnowLady]

I have a 29 gallon tank. I bought 8 fish 4 days ago (4 zebra Danios and 4 Sepae Tetras)

I just tested the water today and everything checked out great!!!

But I can't seem to find two of my tetras. One almost immediately bonded with the Zebras and never hid. The other three hid. And I have one that plays a little hid and go seek. But the other two... I haven't seen them all day. (4 hours now) They were there last night before bed.

Should I be concerned? They'd been hiding in the castle I bought and I've been looking as best I can inside there - but nada. None are floating on top.

Thoughts? Ideas?? Advice???

 

[rsz]

check in all the plants, behind the filter (if it hangs in your tank), check all over the gravel...

 

[A.K.A Zak]

they could of gottin' sucked up by your filter, 30 gal. filters are pretty strong.

 

[Braddah]

I dont know Im missing my rubber lipped pleco and the last time I was missing something I found him behind the tank (it was a n eel .....no pleco behind the tank though.....)

 

[AquaNut]

If there are any openings on the top of your tank, it is indeed possible that they jumped out. I've found missing fish months later, dried up under the sectional or something. However, I'd guess it's more likely that they're just hiding really well in your tank. If they had died, you should be able to find the carcasses if you really search the top AND bottom of the tank, and inside any decorations, plants etc. It's not like four zebra danios did away with the carcasses of a couple of tetras. I bet you'll see them in a while.

 

[SnowLady]

I lost two of them. I found them in the underside of two decorations - when I picked them up.

Now I have to figure out what happened to them and what to do next.

 

[AquaNut]

Aww. I'm sorry about your loss SnowLady. I see by your sig that you did a fishless cycle (good for you!!) and you said your water checked out great this morning. What's your pH like? How about your temp? You said several of them hid as soon as you brought them home. It sounds like they didn't move very well. There are a lot of things that can cause new fish to die after you put them in your tank. Do you know how long they were at the lfs before you bought them? Many fish go through a gruelling procedure before arriving at the lfs and it's not unusual for the lfs to lose large numbers of fish from certain shipments; it's possible that they hadn't been at the lfs very long and hadn't recovered from their long journey to get there. It's also possible that they weren't acclimated to your tankwater properly before being released into it. In addition to the usual floating and adding small doses of your tankwater to their bag before netting them and releasing them into your tank, I usually turn the lights off for a couple of hours when releasing new fish and avoid feeding them for the first couple of hours, too. The only time I do differently is if I'm adding a fish to a tank that already houses territorial or semi aggressive fish; then I'll feed the tank to try and distract them from the newcomer. Sorry I can't offer more help, but please don't be discouraged by this. It's normal to lose fish sometimes and even very experienced aquarists will lose new ones occasionally; it may well have been beyond your control. Good luck and let us know what you do next!

 

[SnowLady]

Ammonia and Nitrite this morning were both 0.0

Just did the PH and it's at 7.0 - within the safe range for these two fish types.

I just LOVE the fish store I got my fish from: http/www.aquariumadventure.com/ (I hope it's OK to post the link). If not I'll remove.

I'll be heading over there tomorrow to see what they think.

Thanks for the advice!!!