Strange Disappearances And Deaths?

[Wayners247]

Hi, im new to the forum and have been keeping aquaria for around 9 months.

I have two tanks, a 48l Fluval Edge Community and a 40l Brackish Figure 8 Puffer species tank.

Everything has been great until the last few weeks.

Ill start with the figure 8 tank, which is the newest. After letting the tank cycle, getting the salinity to the correct level and the PH up, i added two small (sub 2") figure 8 puffers and a 4" Shark catfish. for the first week, all fish seemed very happy and perky, specifically the puffers as its known they have strong personalities. about 1.5 weeks in however, one of the puffers started to decline. It would appear fine, and then minute later appear to be stationary, or stuck, within the plants almost as if sleeping. With some provocation it would wake up and act normal again. it wasnt showing any signs of illness, its faeces was fine, its belly was pure white and there was no sign of white spot or other disease. The next morning I woke and it was stone dead, whilst the other puffer and the shark catfish where fine.

I tested the water, and everything checked out fine, there wasn't even slightly elevated levels of nitrate or nitrite. I took a water sample to the LFS and they confirmed the same. I got some treatment incase there was some parasites from the frozen food I had been giving them.

That was roughly 3 weeks ago, fast forward to today. And the same issue. Yesterday morning, the remaining puffer greeted me in his usual bubbly manner and appeared totally fine. That afternoon however, and he was lethargic and appeared to have a sunken belly. I tried to quarantine him but that didnt help, moved himback to the normal tank and by the evening he was also dead.

When I took him out, I inspected him, and again there was no sign of disease, no whitespot or finrot, his belly was white and his beaks were fine and not overgrown. The only difference here was that he appeared to have a sunken belly.

Does anyone have any tips or advice here? Anything I can test for that I am not doing already? I have test equipment for ammonia, ph, nitrates and nitrites and a hydrometer along with the other more basic tests, which as above, all check out fine.

Now for my community tank.

This tank I have had since January. 2 weeks ago it contained: 6 blue tetras, angel fish, male fighting fish, snail eater, red tailed shark, 2x sucking loaches, 2 small plecs, a male and female Apisto, pearl gorami and 2 guppies along with a few apple snails.

The first thing that happened, is one morning I woke to find the Pearl Gourami half eaten and floating in the tank. Quickly tested the water, no problems there everything perfectly fine. I thought it could have just been one of those things and the other fish had a snack.

However, a few days after that, we found the dragon tail guppy in the same state and just yesterday morning the Fighting fish is nowhere to be found, no carcass or pieces floating around, and that was quite a large fish with really nice large fins and I find it hard to believe it can have been devoured overnight with no sign at all?

Again, checked all the water, did a water change, and everything is fine.

I realise that the apisto, red tail shark and the angel fish 'can' be aggressive, however they have all been in the tank together for some time and never shown any signs of aggression before now. Is that really the only explanation?

Thanks for reading, any help is appreciated.

-Wayne

 

[shi24137]

well I can tell you from experience that if a fish sinks to the bottom the snails will eat it up. I've had that happen before, but one time I caught my snail eating the dead fish. Also with bettas(fighting fish) look behind the tank, I've had a few decide to jump out of the tank before.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

I can't help you with the puffer tank but that 48L community tank is...shockingly overstocked and with fish that will all readily attack each other. Aside from the tetras none of those fish should be kept in a tank together, I could sit here for half an hour detailing the fish combinations in that tank that do not work. Please don't take this the wrong way but it's like you looked at a list of incompatable fish and put them all in one tank lol! So of course they are eating each other.

You need to get rid of the angel fish, red tailed shark, the plecs (unless you can tell me what they are but not many would work in a 48L), and the sucking loaches as a start. What is this snail eater? I don't know anything about apistos so I cannot comment but I know they they need to be kept on their own with only other small "dither" fish.