HELP !! My filter just sucked up a fish

T

trancecommander

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Feb 28, 2004
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Ok so I'm cycling a small 5 gallon tank to keep in ready in case any of my fish from my main tank (36 gal) start to breed. I'm cycling with 3 guppies. Last night, when I came home, one of the guppies was missing. I looked all over and couldn't fine it. Then, I suspected it might have been sucked up by the filter intake tube ... so I turned off the filter and sure enough, found the dead fish in the intake tube.

Unfortunately, with the small size of the tank, the filter is pretty small as well and doesn't have a regulator with which I can control the amount of water it sucks in. I'm afraid that it might be a little too powerful. The filter is an AquaTech meant for 5-15 gallon tanks.

The intake tube has a filter-cap that slided inside the tube ... so there is about an inch of space before the "grill" which prevents large dirt from being sucked up. I'm afraid that the fish might be swimming to close to it and could be getting sucked up.

Is there something I can do to prevent such a thing from happening ?

Any help would be appreciated !!!!
 
What happened in all likelihood is that the guppy died, or was very near death, and then was sucked in by the filter. Guppies in general aren't as hardy as they once were, so fish loss during cycling is not a big surprise. Can you test the ammonia and nitrites, and let us know your results? My bet is that one of these toxins killed the fish. I doubt very much that the filter was the real culprit.

A good regimen of frequent water changes during cycling will keep toxins low but will not, contrary to popular belief, slow the cycle down significantly. Once you get test results, I would start doing water changes on a daily or every-other-day basis, whatever it takes to get ammonia/nitrites to a low level and keep them there.
 
A piece of panty hose and a rubber band at the bottom of the intake tube works well to prevent further accidents.

HTH.
 
Seeing as how my betta can hang out next to a filter intake and his fins aren't getting sucked up I would have to agree that it seems your fish just died from ammonia poisoning during the cycling process.
 
Years ago I use to have Jewel Cichlids that would jump into my Aquaclear Power filter. :D I'd look all over the tank and then finally in the filter and there it would be - swimming around in the top of the filter.

Once one jumped out of the tank and missed. I found it behind the tank the next morning. It wasn't completely dry and appeared to be alive still, so I put it back in the tank and it survived. I'm not sure how long it had been out of the tank.
 
Thanks for your responses guys ! Personally, I didn't think that the filter was the culprit either.

I know that doing fishy cycling, that potential fish loss was always a factor ... its just that when I cycled my main tank, I lost only one 1 of 5 fishes so I was kinda hoping that this cycle would go the same way.

I checked the water params today ... and I have 0.50 ammonia and 0.20 nitrIte. I guess it was the ammonia that caused the death.

I'm doing a 50% water change everyday during the cycle and hope that will keep the water quality fairly decent.

Thanks again for your input ... and I'll keep a close watch on the intake to see if that's really the cuplrit.
 
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