This is a question I have from years back and just never fully answered...
When I was younger, I had a tank with a number of community to semi-aggressive fish in. It was a nice little tank, about 40g, that lasted long for me. There was one big mystery, though. Fish would disappear!
I would notice a molly, or a barb, or some other fish missing from the tank. No dead fish could be found in the tank. No fish outside the tank, so no leap-out overnight. Just gone.
I had two big bottom feeders in there. Two striped raphaels that seemed to grow rather large pretty quick... up to 4-5 inches if memory serves me correctly. My suspicion was that they were removing these fish. They had very large mouths, it seemed, so I suspected they were either catching some live fish or they were eating the remains if a fish died. It seemed the only plausible explanation for these fish that just vanished.
Those that have kept raphaels or know them well:
1. Does this seem likely or possible as the explanation?
2. How big do they grow? I see web sites say up to 8" but I swear I have seen some very, very large ones in extra large tanks before.
Thanks!
When I was younger, I had a tank with a number of community to semi-aggressive fish in. It was a nice little tank, about 40g, that lasted long for me. There was one big mystery, though. Fish would disappear!
I would notice a molly, or a barb, or some other fish missing from the tank. No dead fish could be found in the tank. No fish outside the tank, so no leap-out overnight. Just gone.
I had two big bottom feeders in there. Two striped raphaels that seemed to grow rather large pretty quick... up to 4-5 inches if memory serves me correctly. My suspicion was that they were removing these fish. They had very large mouths, it seemed, so I suspected they were either catching some live fish or they were eating the remains if a fish died. It seemed the only plausible explanation for these fish that just vanished.
Those that have kept raphaels or know them well:
1. Does this seem likely or possible as the explanation?
2. How big do they grow? I see web sites say up to 8" but I swear I have seen some very, very large ones in extra large tanks before.
Thanks!
