My first casualty :( lucky Larry isn't so lucky afterall

G

Gomer

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Apr 24, 2003
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beyond_gomer.tripod.com
We have 3 baby mollies in the tank...Larry, Curly and Moe. One day Curly disappeared...couldn't find him anywhere in the morning…no matter where I looked.
When I came home from school, I still couldn't find Curly. Then I luckily found him in the side of the tank! He was digging in the gravel and he caved him self in! I thought he was dead, but he was still breathing. He was perfectly fine!

Then... a few days ago, Larry disappeared...couldn't find him anywhere for over a day, so I thought the Cory might have eaten him.

I was planting one of the plants and I must have disturbed the gravel that HE must have caved himself under! Absolute luck that I was re-doing JUST that one plant that day.

2 days ago, he disappeared again! Several hours later I found him again...not sure if he caved himself in or not or found a secret bat cave.

Well, this morning, I found out that Larry was not so lucky....he decided to get sucked in by the power filter and his body was halfway stuck in the intake slits!!! It looked like he was still alive!!!!! I got him out and he died seconds later...I guess the high flow rate was keeping him alive ...so lucky Larry is now unlucky Larry)

I guess if I want to look at the good in this, my fist casualty wasn’t because of poor water conditions. ….and strange that Larry got sucked in. Curly and Moe always swim right next to the intake with zero problems….
 
General rule: Healthy fish don't get sucked into intakes. Unhealthy fish frequently do.
 
I often find healthy fry sucked into filters without sponges over the intake. In fact, I have a powerfilter that acts as a collector and maternity ward for some Synodontis petricola that regularly breed. Every so often I clean the filter and find 8-12 fry happily swimming around in the filter well.

Jim
 
Guess my statement was made on the premise that the fry were no longer small enough to go through the intake. Fry get sucked into filters, but stuck to the intake implies they are outside the filter box and can't get away. Different interpretation. Fish large enough to get caught in the grating by the suction, and are unable to get themselves away, are not usually healthy.
 
Hmm...Fair point. Why do you always turn out to know right in the end? lol.

Gomer, I must assume that this is not the first casulty, as livebearers can give birth to upto 200 fry at a go (that, at least, is the largest brood I have heard of), and would definately have more than 3 young. Raising the young in a community tank is not normally the recommended route..but I have recently raised some young guppies in the same tank as their parents with 6 known survivors. So it does work - but the final brood would be much smaller than if moved into a separate tank.

Thom.
 
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