lost my fish! lol

[SeymourFRESH]

well i guess i made this thread for us to share stories about how fish can disappear easily in your tank for awhile and suddenly reappear when you least expect it

i had 6 otos in my 92 gallon and for the longest time i've only seen 1 to 2 at once. i assumed 4 of them died and decomposed in the gravel/soil. this was at least 3 weeks ago that i made this assumption

well TODAY i realized i couldn't find my baby orange bristlenose pleco which i recentrly got. i opened up the back corner of my aquarium however, and discovered 4 otos just chillin out on the back of our driftwood "cave" in the back. unfortunately i could not find my pleco

i bet he's in there though...but this has happened to me a lot over the years, back when our 55 gallon was our main tank we would always get a regular baby plecostomas, and it would just hid under a rock and disappear and we would never see it but maybe 2 more times ever again after that.

i know this has had to have happened to a good majority of you at least once in your fish keeping career!
i just hope i find my little pleco

 

[jcarlilesiu]

my clown loach is an excellent hider. i couldn't find Jim once (don't ask me about the fish names, talk to my girlfriend) I kinda paniced as it was a new tank, and tore everything apart... i pulled out the driftwood, still nothing... was holding the drift wood and looking the tank and around it when i felt the driftwood moving... he was in a cave in the bottom of the driftwood and was flopping around... i immediatly submerged the wood and he came swimming out and looked at me like "what is wrong with you"... then i gave him some brine to appologize

 

[Zagz]

I know what you mean my BN plecos are babies too and hide well. I'm sure he'll turn up. Good luck!

 

[Andyvette]

I checked on my tank at about 6pm one night. I fed them in the morning, although didnt have time to observe. When I looked in the tank at 4pm the next day, I didnt see my black molly. I moved stuff, dug through the substrate, etc. Nothing. Still to this day (2 weeks later), nothing has reapeared (this is in a 30 gallon), and I am certain he couldnt have decomposed in 20 hours. Not to mention I had no spikes in ammonia or nitrite. I have a cat, but also have a lid. My ONLY thought.... cat opened the lid, the molly jumped out, the lid closed perfect, and cat ate the fish.

Go ahead and start playing the twilight zone music.....

 

[SeymourFRESH]

i know! that's the kind of stuff that happens sometimes, it's so weird. i know i'm not crazy because i know it happens! lol

i do have a LOT of places to hide in my tank though, especially for small fish (pic of tank is in gallery). the only reason why it worries me at all though is because when i first put him in he was out all the time. tonight he hasn't been out at all...weird

 

[Lonewolfblue]

My pleco is out all the time. But occasionally I won't see him for a day or 2, then he'll be out again. All my BN Plecos are out all the time.

 

[SeymourFRESH]

do your bristlenose do great for algae cleanup lonewolf? i only have 2 and i was wanting to get more but i don't know if it'll be worth it. my dad really seems to think they're going to get big and tear up our plants but everywhere, literally everywhere i've read says they stay relatively small and don't tear up any plants.

how does your tank do? your 75 gallon seems pretty sweet!

 

[Lonewolfblue]

I have 4 BN plecos and they do awsome. I do give algae tablets as well so they get other nutrients as well. But they do an awsome job. If I didn't have the large sailfin pleco, I'd get 2 more BN's. But the 4 in my planted tank do a great job. And my driftwood that was green is now bare, lol.

My tank is doing great. Did a major pruning last weekend. So it seems kind of bare for now, lol. But everything just keeps growing, lol.

 

[SeymourFRESH]

sweet! yeah i only have 2, one is an adult and one's a baby...they did a good job of cleaning off some rocks, but a lot of my algae still remains, i'm thinking it's just because i only have 2 plecos throughout a 90 gallon tank

i'm gonna get a few more in a little while...hopefully my little guy will come out soon, i'm thinking he's a gonner though...he was out all the time literally, and i haven't seen him for about 3 days now

 

[QTOFFER]

My two melanistius corys go AWOL for days in the planted 58 gal. Fow awhile, I though that both had passed on. It's not as if they're tiny either - both are about 2 inches. When they are out, they're up front and center scrounging around for food.

 

[CompMage]

Yea when I got my sunshine pl*co for my 55g tank he was around for about 3 days then when missing for almost a month!!!! I could not find him. I was getting really concerned. I didn't want a dead fish in my tank and well that was not a cheap fish. I suspected he was not dead as my algae was quickly reducing. And the wafers were gone in the morning too. But my Rainbow shark will eat them too.

Till one day I got up and he was stuck the front of the glass. I was so happy to see him after so long. He had dug him self a bit of a hole under one of my fake wood caves (the only fake ornament in the tank) and would retreat there from the other fish during the day I later found out after watching him for some time the day I found him.

 

[hsherman1986]

i lost one of my ottos for a day or so (i have three and it was the largest that was missing), then was moving some things around making room for more plants and he was chillin on the backside of a rock that i have leaned up against the back of the tank. Now everytime i cannot find it, i look back there, and it is still back there (and yes still alive). My loaches love to hang out back there too, they like to sleep in the bubble curtain that partially is behind the rock

 

[swanandmokashi]

I lost one of my ottos for several weeks -- I thought he had passed away.
This was before we moved from Atlanta -- I was giving all my fish with the tank away. So I told my friend that the tank has 3 yo-yos and 2 ottos.

When he came to pickup the tank and inmates suddenly the 3rd otto showed up bonus for my friend!

 

[SeymourFRESH]

well that's great guys, you're making me feel like i'm gaining some hope here! lol
my tank is too structured to tear it appart looking for a fish that is 1.5" and is the same color as the gravel
i was almost going to tear it appart today but i decided not too...

 

[Musket]

My rubbernose plecos hide all the time. i thought he was dead as well and took all the rest of the fish out and did a major water change. THere, with only an inch of water, I hear a rustle. In the corner he is... Quick I refill the tank and he is fine. He still hides a lot. This tank is on my entertainment center so I can not go behind it to look. I see him jet across the tank from time to time, or see him sucking up front.
My other rubbernose in another tank is the same way. As long as I see them once a week I just don't worry about them anymore.
My chocolate pleco who is not small anymore at 4" can still hide. He blends right into his favorite rocks. ( one is light and one is dark, and he blends to both on occasion, strange). Sometimes I have to look really hard and realize he is right there on the rock.

 

[Hovoc]

my ivory snail dissapears for hours at a time, i think he crawls into a hol ein the rock and stays there

 

[Slarty Bartfast]

Zebra Loach

My zebra loach disappears into a hole in a chunk of coral that I have for hours at a time. The hole is barely bigger than he is. I thought I lost him (her?) for a while. My first one jumped out of the tank and died when I wasn't looking, so I'm pretty paranoid about this one. Otherwise, a great fish with tons of character.

Possibly a Daria Botia Loach???? Just said zebra loach when I bought it.

My pleco also hides in a nice cave that I bought him. I figure, if the thing wants to hide, then let him hide. I picked up a log looking cave from the turtle section at petco and sunk it into the tank, and he's pretty comfortable in there, so I guess that he's happy, and therefore so am I.

 

[SeymourFRESH]

hooray! he came back

he seems to be a little less active and it's orange color is kind of faded a little bit

hmmm.....! he's been out all evening, i wondered what happened to him the past week? lol

 

[Squirt0170]

Lost Fish

Well this morning I lost myblack ghost knife fish... I bought him 3 days ago and have been keeping a real close eye on him. I bought one before him and it died 3 days later... I still to this day have no Idea why, I test my water frequently, and also took a water sample to the store. I catered to the first BGK and he wouldn't eat ANYTHING!!! I tried frozen brine shrimp and frozen bloodworms! This new BGK is eating and I'm catering to him as well. Yesterday before I went to the pet store he started struggling swimming a bit. I have salt in there, the Temp is fine and the water levels are great! I asked my Pro fish salesman about what could be going on with my fish and he thinks its the Saint Louis MO water!! He said it's NOT me LOL. They are even having a hard time keeping them well...

 

[SeymourFRESH]

ehhh, it could be st. louis' water, because we have a lot of rock around here that could increase water hardness by alot

BGKs probably prefer soft water, as they come from the amazon

a lot of america's water is pretty screwed up though, IMO