[Suzanne]

Simple.....How do I find a killer? In three weeks, I have lost a Frontosa, Gold Nugget Pleco and a Tropheus..........All at night and all have been eaten or partially eaten.......What do I do?????

Who ever is killing is going for the "prime rib" of the tank......

Suzanne

 

[Cook.MN]

List your tank stock and lets see if we can't narrow this down for you.

 

[Suzanne]

Ok, I have 1 Mango Pleco, 1 Jewel Blood Red, 1 Red Peacock, 1 Sunshine Peacock, 2 OB Peacocks, 1 yellow lab, 1 buffalo head, 1 colbolt blue, 1 hap moorii, 1 buttikoferi, 2 rainbow sharks (Albino is currently in a time out), 1 five star general, 1 labeo fuellebo, 1 venustus, 1 catfish, 1 yellow lab, 2 johanni............WOW!!!!

 

[Cook.MN]

Who's the dominant fish when lights are turned on? Looking at the M. Johanni myself, but there are fish by fish cases.

 

[Suzanne]

You know, I am not sure who is more dominent. There are a couple...The johanni is dominent, however he was bought at the same time with the Frontosa and they have been getting along just fine. Actually the recent death of the Frontosa was overnight....Friday he was there and Saturday he was gone! I have never seen any harrassment in the tank toward anyone. There is some chasing, however no significant fights. The yellow lab is also semi aggressive.....but he is only about a inch long and the frontosa was a little larger.......My tropheus was very small, so I am not to suprised he is gone. The Gold Nugget Pleco was about 2 inches and he was killed overnight and I found his 1/2 eaten.........PERSONALLY, I am not sleeping well at night wondering who will be dead in the morning.......UGH!!

 

[bernie comeau]

The killer, I would strongly suspect the buttikoferi or 5 star general, but who knows for sure. If they aren't killers in your tank yet, they probably will be once they gets larger. Who's eating the dead fish? With young growing fish in the tank, any or all could be eating it; who ever is the hungriest and growing the most.

 

[aaxxeell]

my best bet would be the buttikoferi or the frontosa...
you wouldnt even know with the frontosa they are deepwater fish that slowly creep up on their prey, it has been said that frontosas will eat fish half their size, or anything that fits in their huge mouth...

i think down the track your gonna need to rehome your 2 fish, and i suppose if your stock is getting eaten now is as good a time as ever :thumb:

 

[Cook.MN]

Yeah but the Front was one of the fish that was killed.

 

[jordanroda]

my vote is the buttikofer...who are the biggest fishes?... opcorn:

 

[Oneeyedgeckz]

If you can't figure it out by looking and watching the fish in the daytime, you may want to set up a video camera to record your aquarium while you are away. I know that it will be a lot of fast forwarding, but it will teach you a lot about what your fish do while you are away/sleeping.

Also, keep in mind that the fish doing the killing may not necessarily be the one doing the eating. Everyone in the aquarium will look at the newly dead fish as fair game for food.