Think Fish Keepers Daily News. [2016-2019]

Will do... it didn't take me long to spot quite a few pairs in the LFS.  My research has also said they are quite easy to breed... so fingers crossed once they net goes in the pairs don't all mix up and become impossible to find again!!

Always good to hear about a successful trip to an LFS. 

Indeed - I thought I ought to pay another visit some time soon to check up on the welfare of my under-quarantine fish's "siblings", purely for research purposes of course, in case it might affect the duration of quarantine time required. Any excuse to have another look at what else is there, for future reference... 

Just found a microdevario kubotai on the carpet, dead. All remaining 7 had definitely been in there an hour or so ago as I'd been examining them closely (and noticed a couple had signs of missing portions of their caudal fins). So this poor little one was a healthy one which must have leapt through the cable holes.     

I have conincidentally had a similar experience today which has put off my plans for new fish slightly... my agassizi male is no more 

He was a bit of a star of the show so to speak and his loss has actually upset me quite a bit... I'm normally relatively unaffected by the loss of a fish (I don't want to make that sound like I don't care... I do... but I guess normally I can rationalise it) but it was not nice to see what had happened to this guy and I am totally responsible for what happened. 

I'll hopefully explain more soon... but in summary I spent the day emailing fish shops to try and source a new partner for the female.

So I share you're pain @fcmf and hope that we both have better news soon.  Did you find out how the others in the store are doing?

No male quite yet... I have a store getting one in for me in a few weeks.

I hope you have good news on Seb for us soon too Donna. I am quite hopeful given your recent posts.

Oh, @Matt - I'm so sorry to read about your agassizi male; how horrible for you.

Did you find out how the others in the store are doing?

There have been some fatalities, a few at a time dotted over the course of the past few weeks, but generally nothing unusual and no definite signs of illness that have required them to be taken off sale. The few that remain looked active and healthy. (Having said that, it was only later on when I re-examined each of my own fish in detail that I noticed the missing portions of tails in two of them, something I hadn't considered checking on those in store.)

Similarly to you, I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm responsible not only for today's event but also for the missing portions of tails. I thought we still had an old glass tank, stowed away, as a temporary back-up tank for the main tank in the event of an unspeakable crisis and also for the purpose of quarantining; it was only a couple of days beforehand that I discovered we no longer had it (I must have given permission, perhaps while otherwise distracted, for it to be disposed of) and realised that I'd have to dual-purpose the hospital tank as the quarantine tank. This tank is only 17 litres and a bow-shaped front - basically, just like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Disney-Frozen-Aquarium-Kit-Boxed-Tested-Trusted-Ebay-Shop-/272840145831 - which I thought would probably be alright for the short-term duration of quarantining. Now, however, I'm beginning to think this was a mistake - the fish have been extremely and almost constantly active (like Duracell bunnies) and perhaps this hasn't been fair keeping them in such a small environment. I'm wondering if some chasing I've seen in the past week has led to the missing portions of fins on two of the fish, while today's bid for freedom (or whatever it was) was a consequence of this...  Needless to say, I've since been doing some initial research into a new quarantine/back-up tank.

I'm still trying to establish how the fish did escape. The tank lid was not removed between the time I had been examining them in detail and this little fish met its end on the carpet. Therefore, either it catapulted/kamikazed out of the rear cable holes (potentially hitting the wall behind the tank and then bouncing or plummeting forward onto and off the chest of drawers on which the tank was located to ultimately land on the floor in front of the tank) or else it kamikazed out through the 0.5x1.0cm hole in the fish auto-feeder which I'd been experimenting with the past couple of days and which was located towards the front (I'd removed the flap and set the auto-feeder on top of this where it had fitted perfectly with no gaps but had had to keep the lid of the auto-feeder open as the flakes were clogging up). The latter seems more likely as this would more likely explain how the fish ended up on the floor in front of the tank. Whether it was making a bid for freedom because it found its environment too small, got a fright (although I don't think that can have been possible during the timeframe it occurred in), was attempting to retrieve the clogged-up food from the auto-feeder (plausible as some of these new fish have almost been leaping out of the water before the food hits it when I've  been feeding them), or had some sort of epileptic seizure / heart attack / stroke and just happened to fly out through the hole, I'll never know.

Separately from this, in the main tank, the newer of my two nerites seems to have developed an obsession with pushing itself behind the main filter and causing it to float out from the wall. I can see this potentially causing a problem with some tank inhabitants ending up behind there if this isn't sorted ASAP, and so I definitely won't be moving the newbies into the main tank until this is resolved. Filter wool isn't an option - the downside of a corner filter perhaps, that it floats out at an angle - but I need something to help the bottom of this corner filter attach itself to the wall of the tank better, so I'm exploring the possibility of magnets inside the filter and on the back of the tank wall to enable this (although this is turning out to be a minefield).

Exhausted - just hope I sleep tonight and have no fish-themed nightmares!

@fcmf you had quite the acrobat there. It sounds like the all of them are fairly accomplished at going through some acrobatics to get at food.
When you consider how fish are kept at shops, the numbers in each tank, I wouldn't have thought that they found your quarantine tank overcrowded. Perhaps a larger tank for quarantine in the future would be useful though.
The only time I've had a fish try to jump out of a tank under normal circumstances was with a WCMM. It didn't manage to get out of the tank, but I witnessed it trying. Turned out it was unwell, and even with moving it to a quarantine tank, it passed within a couple of days. Perhaps your fish was also already unwell, especially as the shop has also had some losses.
You may have to chalk this one up as an unfortunate incident.
You've had quite  an eventful day. I hope that you sleep well and don't have any nightmares. I seem to have had a few recently where I appear to be working in a small fish shop, and struggling with large numbers of fish being kept in tanks that are too small for them. Luckily none of the species appear to be fish that I keep, so at least I'm not having nightmares about my actual fish.

Thanks, @Rustle .

I think I may have got to the bottom of the mystery. I'm still testing out the auto-feeder's function and so it's still in situ on the QT - but with the lid closed on it in case a fish decides to launch itself up through it. At dinnertime this evening, I put some food through the slot and hastily closed the lid on it. There was a definite odd sound on the lid of the auto-feeder that I'd never heard before and could only be explained by one thing - it seems as though the fish in the QT are such voracious feeders that they leap out of the water and one must have hit the inside of the auto-feeder lid but luckily was prevented from diving right out because I'd closed it just in time.

This isn't negating my lessons learned from yesterday which are still valid - mentioned here and furthermore in another thread - but I now think I have a plausible explanation for how and when the fish escaped the tank. I'll certainly not be using an auto-feeder at any stage with its lid open to prevent clogging of food, where these particular fish are concerned!

After all the sad news we've had recently, I thought I'd post a change of direction.

First of all, I've just checked, and Seb is still with us.

Second is the massive reorganisation of the tanks in the Littlefish household. This is always ongoing, but as part of a big sort out in the house I've also uncovered a massive amount of hardscaping materials that I've accumulated over the past couple of years. My aquascaping skills leave a lot to be desired, with my general approach being "throw everything in the tank and see if the fish like it". In an attempt to recycle the accumulated materials in a more aesthetically pleasing manner I have asked @Matt to help, which he has kindly agreed to do.

Bless you Matt, you have no idea how much stuff I've got, or how awful I am at placing stuff in a tank. Or, in fact, how indecisive I can be about which fish will end up in which tank. I hope that you have massive reserves of patience.

Anyway, most of the stuff will be posted on his site http://www.scapeeasy.co.uk/index.htm but we will give regular updates on the forum too. 

Wow - this all sounds very exciting indeed; looking forward to seeing "before and after" type pics. I'll be embarrassed to post any pics of my own tank from now on, though, for fear that Matt recoils in horror (especially as I'm now about 60% silk, 40% real plants - thank goodness the fish quite like the extra coverage provided by the silk ones).

My QT filter has almost "given up the ghost" - ground to a halt, got fiddled with and seemed to resurrect itself, then has been grinding gradually to another halt - so a new one has been ordered and ought to arrive tomorrow. Meanwhile, the newer of the two nerites continues to cause problems with the main filter in the established tank due to pushing herself behind it - the gap is not going to bode well for the newbies once moved across from the QT, so I'm weighing up the pros/cons of what to do (on the case with enquiring about magnets to hold the filter to the aquarium wall but realising that this may impede the motor) or somehow finding/making some space to squeeze an aquascaping-practice tank which can simultaneously house the nerites and possibly a few shrimp (but the nerites may not be too happy to find their space considerably reduced)...