Ash Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 As per the title, a buddy has a tanganyika 8x2x2 which is way overfiltered that had 6 18 month old fronts in it, plus 6 N. leleupi, & eleventy billion N. brichardi. Over the past two weeks he's lost two of the fronts, first the dominant male (~20cm) then one of the suspected to be girls (~15cm) the following week. The water parameters are ok & no carcasses were ever found.... here's the sus bit - he & his brother have been in a kind of feud (his brother has the problem, not him) and as no bodies were ever recovered (the tank doesn't have that much rockwork either, you'd find them) he thinks his brother might have pinched them & sold them to a LFS! The tanks are at my buddy's parent's place, neither of the brothers lives there at the moment so the owner only gets to check the tank twice weekly - that said whenever he had lost a fish before (much smaller ones in his malawi 8x2, venustus agro related) the bodies were found by his parents straight away. Could whole 20cm front disappear totally in under 3* days? *3 days between him seeing them totally healthy during a waterchange & his parents reporting not seeing the fish anymore Conspiracy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spedwards Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 I'm no expert on decaying fish bodies, but I would reckon that it would take a lot more than 3 days for a fish that size to completely disappear. All the carcasses I have ever seen of dead fish (some of which have been "missing" for upwards of a week) have always had a lot of skin and skeletal remains... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anchar Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 Funnily enough, I have just had this convo with someone this morning I had a similar thing happen, although I couldn't be positive of the time frame. It remains a mystery to me still...no bones at all...weird. Andrea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 I had a similar-sized fish die in my display tank and the body ended up wedged between 2 rocks up the back corner of the tank (cause of death) where I cannot reach even with a long net. Rather than dismantle the entire tank to get the body I left it there. I had a choice of staying home for the day to retrieve it or going to work and earning 10hrs of double-time By the time I got home that day the fish was well on the way to disappearing, so I cut down on the fish food and monitored the water quality, and let nature take its course. Within 2 days I had nothing but a skeleton. So yes, a fish that size can disappear but what happened to the bones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anchar Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 I had a huge pleco in with them at the time and just assumed that he rasped away at the skeleton and water chemistry took care of the rest. Andrea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 I was seeing bones in my tank for a good 18mths after the event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anchar Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 The only other possibilty in my case was that it had managed to jump out (with the lid replacing itself in position) and was swooped upon my my heeler. Andrea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbeer Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 I have had two disappearing fish. One, a thomasi, jumped out the tank and must have fliped a long way along the ground. Found it three months after it did the jump. I am assuming that the dog,cat and kids weren't involved. The second happened over ten years ago. A rusty disappeared overnight and was never found - no dog, cat, kids or wife back then. No discruntled flatmates, parents or others. I just assume it was aliens. This probably doesn't help - but hey probably aliens. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted April 11, 2006 Author Share Posted April 11, 2006 The only other possibilty in my case was that it had managed to jump out (with the lid replacing itself in position) and was swooped upon my my heeler. Andrea ← ahh, maybe that happened - surely not twice in two weeks when the tank setup hasn't changed for 18 months though! Also the tank was pretty lightly stocked, why would they jump? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anchar Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 Fronties spook easily...they are like sheep. Andrea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted April 11, 2006 Author Share Posted April 11, 2006 Um, now that I think about it, the tank has no lids inside a tight fitting 25cm high hood with 19mm ply lids - there is no way a fish could jump out unless a lid was left open. More & more interesting.... I was seeing bones in my tank for a good 18mths after the event. ← I'll tell him to go bone hunting then. Geez I hope he finds a skull or something so the crap between him & his brother doesn't escalate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simonauv Posted April 11, 2006 Share Posted April 11, 2006 I had some fish stolen from the tanks I have at work. Had two green terrors stolen, plus their heater and that was easy enough to sus... BUT... the third is a mystery. It was a 20cm long wrasse that was there on the Friday afternoon when I fed him/her and was not there on Monday. I dismantled the tank looking for evidence and found none and looked behind every cupboard in the lab and over every square inch of the floor and still nothing. Only weird thing was someone had tried to log into the computer in the lab and left the puter on. So this fish was also stolen (which was dead stupid cos I caught it myself 5min down the road whilst diving). I also had in the tank two grouper of about 20cm and a fish the locals call a nanwi or a dreamfish (apparently if you eat them they give you intense nightmares - turns out there is an halucinogenic substance that messes with your head in the skin lol) - and there is no way they could have polished off a fish that big (or killed it cos it was quite aggressive) in one weekend - my bet is yours were knocked off. Tell him to rig the lids so he knows if they've been lifted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted April 11, 2006 Author Share Posted April 11, 2006 he'll have problems rigging the lids like that, he isn't the one feeding them daily Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Salita Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 Is your buddy in townsville too? Seeing as there isnt a whole lot of lfs' up there, and 2 20cm fronnies are fairly memorable. Would it be of any benefit to have a little ring around to see if any have been traded or brought in recently? Surely staff would recall having such a fish through the shop... You would think if it died outside the tank and a pet didnt grab it your nose would find it soon enough.... innocent until proven guilty of course HTH, Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gypo Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 The only other possibilty in my case was that it had managed to jump out (with the lid replacing itself in position) and was swooped upon my my heeler. Andrea ← if your dog did eat it, look out for hair loss... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anchar Posted April 12, 2006 Share Posted April 12, 2006 if your dog did eat it, look out for hair loss... Why? It was more than three years ago, so he's in the clear....dunno how I would notice extra hair loss in a heeler anyway. He dumps bucket loads weekly Andrea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted April 12, 2006 Author Share Posted April 12, 2006 Is your buddy in townsville too? Seeing as there isnt a whole lot of lfs' up there, and 2 20cm fronnies are fairly memorable. Would it be of any benefit to have a little ring around to see if any have been traded or brought in recently? Surely staff would recall having such a fish through the shop... You would think if it died outside the tank and a pet didnt grab it your nose would find it soon enough.... innocent until proven guilty of course HTH, Jason ← There's actually a few mid size frontys getting around here at the moment so identifying the exact fish would be a bit hard, could check with the staff when they got them & if this man *whips out photo* handed them in. Search for bones mission is tomorrow arvo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CThompson Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 I have had a couple of foai (10-12cm) disappear in my big tank. Nothing was seen of them again. They were not ill, they were not victimised – they just disappeared, never to be seen again. One of my much smaller petricola catfish passed on, I also assume due to the same reasons as the foai (misadventure?), and I found a skin….which had a bit on it that looked like their pectoral fin, so I could identify it (fairly distinctive). That was months …may 2 months ago, and just this week, some bones have come rolling out. Petricola have an armoured body, so I assume the bones to be heavier, and more likely to survive the test (of a bit) of time, where as the foai, would have normal fish bones, and must have disappeared along with the rest of the body. Baz sounds like he has the best “answer” to this question, but the answer is still a bit open to individual circumstance. Question for you. Do the frontosa eat the brichardi young? Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted April 13, 2006 Author Share Posted April 13, 2006 they do, but no where near enough of them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie Salita Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 I hope you get to the bottom of it. It would be a very hungry pleco or group of bristlenose to strip such a fish to the bones in less than a few days. I had a lepidio attenuatus female just vanish once. 3 weeks later, she re-appeared alive and well. Go figure..... Craig, are you still looking to thin the numbers? I know its been discussed before, but I wasnt sure if any of the smaller lepidio's had been mentioned. Like attenuatus, or Kendalli. A hungry kendalli would sure make short work of inch long brichardi's. They can be a bit agressive though. attenuatus are tamer and would be way to fast to be in danger from the brichardi parents in a large tank, and when hungry may shoot in and pick off the smaller ones. I know mine make short work of any julidochromis or b/n around half an inch that get caught out in the open. Cheers, Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r.d.m Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 i had a "jumping fronty" and i found it dead about 5 metres from the tank up aginst the wall,and the lids were still in place,just busted straight through with the lid closing behind her Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bling Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 i had a fry tank setup for red tops, there was around 20 red tops in there, and 2 bristlenoses, one of the bristlenoses disappeared completely, there was no decorations in the tank at all. The next day i was giving away the fish and the tank, and i emptied it completely and there was no bones no skins nothing evident of the bristlenose, even after i had emptied all the water and searched the gravel by hand. quite a myster indeed. and theres no way it could have escaped as its a closed tank and the lid only opens on feeding. Perhaps there are fish stealing aliens among us, who are slowly taking over our fish supplies, starving the entire human race of its fish, and then one day when there is no fish BAMMMM they will attack us and take over earth. Dont know how fish affect that, maybe it gives aliens super strength or something? weird. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted April 19, 2006 Author Share Posted April 19, 2006 it's dolphins Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bling Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 it's dolphins ← Hahaha 2 much simpsons for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Posted April 19, 2006 Author Share Posted April 19, 2006 hitch hikers guide actually, missing fish not eaten people! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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