Two nights ago I had the weirdest thing happen in my 55 Gallon Tank.  Before I describe what happened, first I need to explain what fish were in the tank. Here’s a list of fish that I’ve had in the tank for the last few weeks:

2x Female Betta
1x Cardinal Tetra
2x Bala Shark
3x Pictus Catfish
2x Giant Danio
2x Oto Catfish

Besides the fact that the two Giant Danio’s would swim round super fast and sometimes freak out the other fish and the two Pictus Catfish were skittish when I would turn on/off the lights, all the fish seemed to be getting along quite nicely with no fin nipping or aggression.

Then, a few days ago I got a Free 46 Gallon Tank so I decided to get rid of my 20 Gallon tank and put the 46 Gallon in that spot in my room.  To do this I had to transfer the fish that were in my 20 Gallon into the 55 Gallon.  I didn’t think there would be any problem with this, considering all the fish in the 20 Gallon are peaceful fish.  Here is what I had in the 20 Gallon tank:

8x Cardinal Tetra (Small)
1x Oto Catfish
5x Guppies (Small)
1x Pleco

Ok, so I moved those fish into the 55 Gallon.  My main concern was that the 55 Gallon isn’t completely cycled yet so I knew I would have to really watch my Ammonia levels carefully.  However, I’ve been doing daily partial water changes due to the Ich problem I had and it’s not that bad so I figured even if the extra fish put more strain on the biological filter I could temporarily compensate by doing more frequent water changes.  A small price to pay to get a nice 46 Gallon tank setup in place of my small 20 Gallon.

Anyways, I put the fish in there and I kind of figured a couple of the small Tetras might go missing or die but I never expected what happened next.

The following day I check the tank and I noticed that one of my Bala Sharks had the top part of his tail nipped off.  I thought that was pretty odd since I didn’t add in any aggressive fish and the existing fish that have been in the tank were getting along fine.  Then I started looking around and I noticed that a whole bunch of fish were missing!

When I say a whole bunch, I mean EIGHT FISH!  Here’s the casualty list from one night:

2x Female Bettas… GONE!
1x Bala Shark… GONE!
1x Bala Shark… Missing top part of tail.
5x Cardinal Tetras… GONE!

What the heck happened!?  I am pretty sure my 3 Pictus Catfish may be to blame.  They must have gone into a major hunting expedition that night and ate 8 of my fish!  I was devestated to see my Female Bettas gone especially.  They were so fun to watch.

I checked and no the fish didn’t jump out of the tank.  My lid is pretty tightly placed and I looked around the aquarium to make sure they didn’t all jump out.  And no it wasn’t my cat either.  I’m keeping a close eye on the Pictus Catfish and if I find that they are killing all my fish at night, they might just end up getting relocated to the pond in my back yard!

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I’ve added more fish to both of my Aquariums in the last week.  I bought 3 Cardinal Tetra’s, 3 Bala Sharks, 3 Otto Catfish, and one really cool looking Adonis Pleco.  For some reason I lost 2 Tetras and 1 Bala Shark the very first night, but the rest of the fish have had no problems and it’s been almost a week now.

I ended up putting one of the Otto’s in my 20 Gallon as I’m starting to grow some algae in there so I hope he starts to clean that up a bit.  Also, my younger brother Bart gave me 3 fairly sized Pictus Catfish and a Pleco the other day.  I put the 3 Pictus Catfish in my 55 Gallon tank and the Pleco in the 20 Gallon.  He can have a feast with all the algae in there.

Here are some pics:

One of My Pictus Catfish

Another Angle of My Pictus Catfish

My Lonely Survivor Cardinal Tetra. He Needs Some Buddies.

I’ve been keeping an eye on my Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate Levels and finally in the last couple of days the Ammonia levels in my 20 Gallon have started to go down rather quickly, so it looks like my cycle in that tank is coming along nicely.  As for the 55 Gallon, the Ammonia has just started going up in the last few days and today I noticed my Nitrites have gone up so the Cycle is just beginning in that tank.

I’ll be keeping an eye on the Ammonia levels to make sure they don’t go up too high.  Also, I picked up this Filstar Zeolite Ammonia Remover Cartridge for my Rena Filstar xP3 Filter.  It’s supposed to help keep your Ammonia levels from getting too high in new Aquarium setups and from hitting sudden spikes later on.

I’ll measure my Ammonia levels over the next few days and report back how effective it is.

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