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Tetra Mystery

3K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  leifthebunny 
#1 ·
Sorry for the long background description.

Well, I've had my 90g community tank going for some time. It's mostly torpedo tetras and cherry barbs for mid level swimmers, two pair of dwarf gouramis and some hatchets for top level, and a number of shrimp and catfish (Cory, Oto & Farlowella) at the bottom. I also have a pair of kuhli loaches and guppies which appear to keep to themselves. A while back I had to relocate one of my GBRs from my south american cichlid tank until my vegetation grows up in the tank as the GGRs keep trying to spawn and I lost a GBR in the melee (my female has a new companion :)). Shortly after the GBRs were added to the community tank I noticed a nitrite spike and thought it a bit wierd that it would spike very shortly after adding the 2nd GBR. What I didn't notice was that one of the flame tetras went missing. I didn't discover that until Weds when I found the skin/finless corpse of victim #2 on Weds. This morning I found that #3 seems to be missing from my (formerly) school of 6 flame tetras. Shortly after #2 turned up, I found the skull of #1 (which has subsequently disappeared again). Now I know the flame tetras in this tank seem to be the pigs of the tank. They are always first on top feeding and last to leave. They run the other tetras (Cardinal, Black Neon, Blue Mirror, & Glowlight) off their food and despite adding the dwarf gouramis, still seem to "rule the roost" for food. Of the remaining flames, one is a (until recently) formerly anemic looking fish. I used to over feed this tank for a while until the food mold problem clued me in. Now it's once in the evening and the fish don't "eat for 5 minutes" outside of the occasional half algae wafer I drop in the tank.

I know fish are opportunistic feeders, is it possible that these fish died of over eating? Any other ideas?

Edit:
BTW: Everyone else in the tank is healthy and water parameters have equalized again to 0/0/20.
 
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#2 ·
Leifthebunny, can you please show me the blue mirror tetra? I'm not familiar with that common name at all.

Were the flame tetras always looking bloated with foods? Anything unusual in their appearance including bulging eye sockets? Things like this will be suspected as the cause of their deaths.
 
#3 ·
My tanks list the scientific names as well, but you can get a pic here: http://www.jjphoto.dk/fish_archive/aquarium/boehlkea_fredcochui.htm

As for physical, no eyes bulging, but the abdomen has a considerably noticable buldge to it. The body doesn't have the normal smooth transition from lip down and around to the anal fin, it almost looks like a double chin just under the gills.
 
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