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!

It looks like the “Aquarium Pharmeceuticals Proper pH 7.0″ did the trick of bringing my pH levels down to a neutral level around 7.0.  I’m keeping a nightly log of everything I’m doing in the tank on a daily basis and tracking the pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate levels as well as the tank temperature.

Since everything has been going OK, I decided to go out and purchase two more fish to replace the two Tiger Barbs that died and this time I wanted to get a more hearty fish that has a stronger chance of survival during the initial cycling of my tank.  I decided to go and get some Danios since I’ve read that they are really hearty.

I ended up going to King Ed’s Pet Centre and they had Giant Danios there which I thought looked really cool, so I decided to get a pair.  They are rather large, and the 20 Gallon tank I have may actually be a bit small for them eventually as they grow even bigger but I’m pretty sure that I’ll eventually be upgrading to a 45-55 Gallon tank so then they’ll definitely be fine in a tank of that size.  Worst case scenario, I can always give them to my Dad or brother after I cycle my tank and they grow too big for the tank.

Here’s a few pics I snapped of my two new Giant Danios:

I also ended up picking up 12 small guppies too because I wanted to see how well they do in the tank, and they were only $5 for 12.  They’re just babies right now so they have plenty of room in the tank.  Here’s some pictures of them:

I even managed to get a better picture of my Cherry Barb:

While at King Ed’s Pet Centre I was also checking out some of their bigger tanks.  They had a special on a 50 Gallon tank kit with a Glass Top, Hagen Aqua Clear 70 Power Filter, 200W Heater, T5 Light, Gravel and a wood stand for $399.  It’s not a bad deal, but I didn’t really like the stand and when I do end up getting a bigger tank I’ll probably end up buying the components separately as I don’t want the “cheapie” components that come with the “kit”.  Maybe if I can pick up a better stand somewhere else, I might purchase just the glass aquarium with the glass top and the T5 Light from King Ed’s Pet Centre if I can talk them into giving me a good deal.

For now, I’ve got to get my 20 Gallon cycled and keep it running properly with healthy fish.