Matt's 220 Litre Aquaoak

They stay near though not at the surface (like rocket killifish or hatchetfish might) and do appreciate some foliage/cover near/at the surface. They are very peaceful towards others with a bit of very light chasing and displaying between them presumably breeding and hierarchy related (no worse day than harlequins). I also personally think they are beautiful and so would highly recommend them. They do have quite small mouths and so food must also be small.

   Do keep us posted.

Well I was not wanting to post again tonight to be completely honest but @fcmf has spurred me on... and now @Littlefish has posted whilst I’ve been typing....

I feel somewhat strange and conflicted and upset about all this... I did not manage to find the male earlier... I’m hoping that this means he is still alive and well and was hiding from view, but my emotions are preparing me for the worst. It’s one thing to loose a fish - I’m quite used to experiencing this - but to loose a pair, a species from the tank so suddenly would be something else entirely...

There are a lot of hiding places available in the tank due to all the decor and plants despite me moving quite a few of these around earlier.  The fish were stressed enough by everything that I didn’t want to go further with it at that point so for now I have stopped looking... though I feel worse for not getting closure on it to be honest.  Having looked back at dates etc I can see that I’ve had the fish 2 years which doesn’t exactly indicate a long life... but the Camallanus worm infection I somehow picked up last year may in part explain this... the female in particular was badly infected.

I feel really confused about whether to continue the search now but have decided to wait till tomorrow and it will have to be a complete strip down of the tank unfortunately to confirm things one way or the other... not something I particularly want to have to do but needs must at this point... he has been hiding a lot more recently (I thought due to the female) and I’m holding out that this is still the case and that he will feel more confident after the night has passed. The only positive I can draw right now is I don’t have to worry about water quality too much due to the heavily planted and mature nature of the tank... if that can be even called a positive...  and I don’t believe he would have been eaten by shrimp as I saw him eating well yesterday evening... but then again so was the female.... I just don’t know what to think...

I had a chat with Mrs Matt just now and she is also feeling that the loss of the female goldeneye was quite unexpected. She spends longer looking at the tank than me and has also not noticed anything out of the usual.

To be honest I’ve spent long enough thinking about this and rewriting it... thinking of something else... checking dates... the tank lights are off now there’s no point overthinking it - it will have to wait till morning now... I’m going to watch My Family in iPlayer as a distraction...

Open to any thoughts or suggestions...

Thanks @Littlefish its comforting to read your post and that you would be doing the same in my shoes. It is so easy to doubt ones self and to overreact...

I completely agree with your plan and with Littlefish's post.  I hate losing anything generally, and will continue hunting over and over and over again, but sometimes a line eventually has to be drawn on a particular day; when fish are added into the equation, and stress involved among the others in moving decor around/out, then their needs dictate the requirement to draw a line.

I also agree that losing a species from a tank suddenly must be very difficult - I found the loss of 50% of x-ray tetras within a few months difficult, yet old age and their bodies gradually losing their functions clearly accounted for these fatalities - so your situation must be particularly difficult.

I also know only too well, for reasons I'll not go into at the moment, the constant self-questioning. Hopefully tomorrow will help figure out his whereabouts / what has happened.  I would also suggest looking around and under the tank, on the floor, etc., possibly in the first instance; I lost a few neon green rasboras who somehow launched themselves out of the tank through seeming non-existent spaces and must have propelled themselves 2-3 feet in distance.

Best of luck.

Thanks all - fortunately I managed to see this whilst offering up some bloodworm this morning... I’ll post again in a little while with a better update...

Great news 

Finding the male is such a relief 


The cloudiness could just be because you've disturbed things while searching, but checking everything is the way to go.

When you bought the pair, were they a bonded pair or just a male and a female?

Well nitrates were at about 5ppm so even accounting for a water change, there was no problem there - putting this down as “just one of those things” and keeping fingers crossed for the full recover of the male.  The cloudiness must have been from the disturbance of removing items from the tank etc.  The fish were just two fish as such rather than a bonded pair when I first got them @Sue

I’m not sure that’s the case here due to the existing swimbladder issues with the male though I suppose it is a possibility... definitely useful to know for future thanks Sue. I am hoping to try a group of cichlids next in the hope of dispersing aggression so this may help in this respect too.

I’ve not seen him today but will not panic as the stress I would cause all the tank inhabitant were I to try and find him each day would probably lead to casualties. He is hopefully quietly recovering.

@fcmf yes I’ve heard similar stories and am hoping I have the diagnosis right. He should be living pretty stress free now so fingers crossed for his recovery. I’m putting a few sinking pellets in the tank each evening in the hope he will find them appetising when the house is quieter too.