What's eating my cardinals at night?

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roydooms

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I have 2 angelfish, a bristlenose pleco, a dwarf gourami and 10 black skirts. Is it the angels waking up before the cardinals? I added a few cardinals a couple days ago. Is it just bad of the bunch? Thanks.
 
Angelfish will eat small tetras. I once had them in with neon tetras, and my neon population went to zero in about a week or two.

They'll get along with larger tetras, like black skirt and bloodfin, but I'd avoid adding any more of the smaller ones.
 
I just put in a nice school of neons, and I found that my skirted tetra would also nip and kill the neons, learnt that the hard way (thanks LFS, not!) and in my tank I only have cory's and two plecco, so unless they turned viscous, it had to be the skirted tetra, which are known to be nippy..

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Toxicfish, how many Black Skirts do you have? Did you ever actually see the black skirts kill a healthy neon? Black skirts can be nippy when not kept in a group but I have 7 in my community tank and they are very peaceful. I've never once seen mine chase or harass any of the other fish in my tank.
 
My guess is the angels. Looks like the remains of my neons. I had 10 and I'm down to zero now, thanks to a large koi angel.
 
Don't Angels eat Neons and such in the wild? I would think they would in a tank, too...
 
How big are the angels?

I'd be more inclined to believe they died and got rasped on by the pleco than eaten by a nocturnal angel.
 
The angels are half dollar size. One cardinal looks like it was cut in half. I've never seen my black skirts nip on the cardinals. They just leave them alone. I have 10 black skirts. I'm thinking that it might be the angel. They grew really fast. The attack seems to happen only when the lights are off.
 
Nippy fish are usually just nippy, they don't normally kill a fish that quickly.

If your cardinals were unhealthy they could have been nipped until death... Otherwise I would go with the Angels eating them. My Angels are begging for food when I get up in the morning, hours before their lights go on. Lights on or off doesn't make a difference IMHO.
 
im not shure if black skirts have the same temperment and bunos aries tetras but i was wonding one day why my neons just started disapeering then one day i woke up early and turned the fish tank light on and seen the bunos aries tetra with a neon half eaten in his mouth just chewin away at it so i wouldnt rule out the black skirts
 
Seeing a fish with a fish in it's mouth means little IMO...Many fish willl nibble on a dead fish if it finds one.

Roy- Can you 100% rule out your BGK? I would assume one of the angels got a taste of cardinal and decided they make good snacks before I'd blame the black skirts.
 
Angels are not sharks, they can't bite a head off fish. What likely happened is that you cardinals died because of acclimation stress and got nibbled by other fish after that.
 
Angels have an area at the back of the mouth which can close enough and cause enough injury to something between it that it would cause complete removal of the body infront of it from the body behind it. Oscar fish have the same.
 
Coleallensmom said:
Seeing a fish with a fish in it's mouth means little IMO...Many fish willl nibble on a dead fish if it finds one.

Roy- Can you 100% rule out your BGK? I would assume one of the angels got a taste of cardinal and decided they make good snacks before I'd blame the black skirts.

I donated my BGK a couple weeks ago. :( Remember, the same thing happened before. Cardinals were dying. I don't think it's the black skirt.
 
Bigzmey said:
Angels are not sharks, they can't bite a head off fish. What likely happened is that you cardinals died because of acclimation stress and got nibbled by other fish after that.

I acclimated(drip) them for 3 hours. Just a couple minutes after I put them in the tank, their colors went back to normal.
 
Tim Wheatley said:
Angels have an area at the back of the mouth which can close enough and cause enough injury to something between it that it would cause complete removal of the body infront of it from the body behind it. Oscar fish have the same.

That's good information Tim. Thank you. I'll ask my friend to take care of the angels for a few days and see if I'll have more deaths...
 
1/2 dollar sized angel is still really quite small and I doubt it's a fish predator yet. Not out of the realm of possibility, but doubtful. I say this because we have had at least 5 tanks with angels that size or larger with cardinal sized tetra and rasbora without loss. 2 of them currently have juvie fish growing out with the angels.
I'd go back to they died and got ate on.

Sorry if I missed any of these being answered previously. Did you get them recently? Where from? Have you called them to see if maybe this was a "bad batch"? Might not be anyone's fault. Fish unfortunately die in transit and if you bought them soon after they arrived at your LFS...

Getting groups of wholesale fish that die a week after receipt is more common than you'd think.
 
That's something you may want to consider roydooms as I think you have had a lot of losses. A good fish store should hold fish for you after you purchase. I go into my LFS on a Wednesday (their delivery day) and if I want something I will pay for it, but I won't take it for a few days because I want to ensure it's going to survive the delivery to the LFS.
 
HN1 said:
1/2 dollar sized angel is still really quite small and I doubt it's a fish predator yet. Not out of the realm of possibility, but doubtful. I say this because we have had at least 5 tanks with angels that size or larger with cardinal sized tetra and rasbora without loss. 2 of them currently have juvie fish growing out with the angels.
I'd go back to they died and got ate on.

Sorry if I missed any of these being answered previously. Did you get them recently? Where from? Have you called them to see if maybe this was a "bad batch"? Might not be anyone's fault. Fish unfortunately die in transit and if you bought them soon after they arrived at your LFS...

Getting groups of wholesale fish that die a week after receipt is more common than you'd think.

I bought the angels a couple weeks ago and they were quarter sized. I bought them from LFS an hour from where I live. The cardinals at petsmart.. I waited a week from their arrival before I bought them. So I'll get the hardy ones. They look really stressed though in the bag. Lost all the colors. It all came back after acclimation.
 
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