Missing / sick fire fish

[sstanle4]

We have a 10 gallon tank and we have 2 fire fish. I went to class around 11:30 this morning and when I got back around 4:30 I could only find one fire fish and it has a bruise on his head and it looks like he has a black eye. All of our levels are perfect and everything. But we still cannot find our other fire fish. We have picked up all the rocks, looked all the way around the tank, and everything. We do not know what has happend to her. Can someone please help us on finding our fish and telling us why our fish has a spot on his head. Thanks

 

[redsea]

Did you check your equipment for the fish?

 

[sstanle4]

Do you mean the filters?

 

[redsea]

Yep, and other equipment like protein skimmers. Good luck!

 

[sstanle4]

nope she is not anywhere

 

[ocminpin]

Do you have a small child??

When my son was 2 1/2 he got into the betta tank ("I just wanted to pet him mommy") and I found him stuck to the side of the fabric table cloth fins torn to shreds... :-(

 

[sstanle4]

nope sorry haha no kids yet

 

[sstanle4]

I was doing a little research on these critters.. and I found that some are gone for weeks, then magically reappear one day. How do they survive that long without being seen? When do they eat? haha I'm just curious. This fish has completely blown our minds

 

[Bloomk]

Did you find him? 10 gallons isn't alot of places to hide.

 

[sstanle4]

no.. he's still missing... haha

 

[sstanle4]

Did you find him? 10 gallons isn't alot of places to hide.

We think he might be in one of our rocks... Our other firefish (which is 3 inches long) entered this rock yesterday and had enough room inside of it to turn a round completely (he swam in head first, then swam out head first). So he might be hiding within this rock. But what do we do? I mean if he is in there, we cant pull him out. And what if (fish-heaven forbid) he's dead? Still no sign of him since last thursday...

 

[joy13]

Can you see any of the tail or head that might be peeking out of the rock? If there is you may have to break the rock to get it out. It took me and my friend nearly 2 hours to rescue his tomato clown.

 

[Bloomk]

Check the water. Did the tank start cycling?

 

[sstanle4]

No, there is no tail or head sticking out anywhere. We took that rock out yesterday to see if he was in there and he was not. This fish has learned how to become invisible. I swear. I know yall think we are crazy. But the fish is gone!

 

[all4wheels2]

Is it possibly he buried himself in the sand? I can literally watch my firefish do that - makes such a mess.

 

[joy13]

If you have live rock in the sense that it is full of worms and things like that it is possible it died and the worms took care of the clean up. Whenever I see a bunch of the CUC I know that something in the tank has died. It is usually less than an hour before something the size of a fire fish can be gone.

 

[sstanle4]

We don't have sand, we have gravel. Is it still possible to bury themselves in the gravel?
And yes we have live rock, but I don't know if there are worms in it or not? There would be some sign of them in our rocks wouldnt there?

 

[joy13]

I only see my bristle worms when I feed the tank heavily and they come out to clean up the leftovers. Do you have any crabs or snails?

 

[sstanle4]

well we had crabs but they all died (no copper in the tank and we still dont know what has happend)

 

[all4wheels2]

Great...now I can't find my firefish I added two clowns yesterday, and haven't seen my firefish since last night. Darn fish give me headaches!