Help: Schooling Tetras eating other.

C

combuddy91

AC Members
Oct 31, 2007
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I have been noticing for a while that my danios have been dissapearing without a carcass - I mainly thought of it as bad water and overfeeding so I changed the water more often and decreased feeding. Just today I noticed something unmistakable - a dead serpae tetra with bit marks, missing fins and and chunks of flesh missing. The only thing in the tank were 6 other tetras and a big lone danio. What should I do?

PS - its a 29 gallon and I don't think I am overcrowding them.
 
Im not sure what to tell you about this, but i know who ever does have an idea, is going to want to know this kind of info:

what are your pH, nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia levels? how long the tank has been set up? when did you add these fish? what do you feed and how often? have you seen other symptoms of disease? (fish will eat the carcasses of dead fish...) what temperature is the tank?
 
Are all your other tetras serpae as well? Serpaes are expected to nip viciously towards other species but killing each other is unheard of for a tank that has sufficient space. Consider isolating the danio before it meets its demise as well. Keep a watch on your remaining tetras. If it doesn't stop, best to rehome them in a larger, heavily-planted tank. Is your tank heavily decorated?
 
Was the fish dead already when the other fish started eating it? If so that is natural. It is natures way of cleaning up the environment or in this case the tank. If however the fish was still alive that is highly unusual. Separate the offender and you may have to re-home him and any of the others that are doing the same thing.

Marinemom
 
thanks for all the replies, unfortunately though, I dont have a spare tank for the lone danio but it doesn't seem scared or anything like that.

The bite marks on otherhand were clear when the other tetra was still alive! My most recent fish deaths are all currently within the last two months - a tetra was unable to swim and died and another had black spots covering it.I raised the temperature, did water changes, and fed less but it didnt work. The only other thing is that I had a recent brown algae outbreak but lots of water changes and scrubbing eventually kept in under control.

My specs

Temp: 78 F
pH: 7.3ish
Ammonia: 0.25 (uh oh..)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate 20ish

And I feed them once to twice a day almost every day.

My most recenr additions were in january this year and I cycled the tank and started stocking fish back around fall 2007 (check my other posts)

My tank is lightly decorated but I'm not sure if there is enough hiding spots. Maybe the mysterious ammonia has something to do with it?
 
Ammonia can be the cause but it could also have been triggered by the presence of the corpse which means it is very unlikely to be the cause. Tetras aren't exactly what you would call "bullet-proof". They're very sensitive to even a slightest amount of ammonia and nitrites.
 
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