I was just reading that Forum Index blurb, under 'What did I do wrong?'. "Find out if your fish died from...that new rock..." Yeah, it was a really bad catch!

But it did help me figure out where to post this. It's only been a week or so, since one of my breeders took a leap out of my breeding tank one night. Now I finally get about to cleaning up my main tank, I discover this:



Not the best pic for better or worse, but that object is the head of one of my Cory's lodged firmly in the knot-hole of one of my stumps. She's well gone of course. But I've been unable to remove the body, it won't go forward or back. I've felt around underneath, the only possible gap is one I can barely poke my little finger into, and I can't feel the fish anyway.

It's a good size stump, it can shelter 20 or 30 Cory's in the large cavern underneath. And I've two Keyhole Cichlids that spend a lot of time down there. There are many little cracks and crevasses through which fish are always darting in and out of.

Unless I'm prepared to remove the entire thing, or pull apart the body in-situ, it's probally gunna have to stay, and work things out naturally. I know that's happened before, fish go missing, and I didn't flush 'em!

i'm sure the remians wont last long. i always remove a casualty if i can but i have had them 'dissapear' and have found various remaims all the way down to a completely cleaned skeleton.

fish dont seem to have a moral code when it comes to canabalism

...as i'm sure u already know.

oh, just remembered, i even saw my shrimps eating one of there own castings recently. recycling i suppose.

I have many fish go, and I've never seen any sign of them at all. Have occasionaly found remains I couldn't identify. This Cory above, was totally gone in a few days. I suspect the Bristlenose did the cleanup. If it were any other fish, I would have seen them take an interest.

None of them seem to like Guppy remains for some reason! I always have to remove them.

My plecos are first on the scene when a fish gives up the ghost. You may find parts or nothing at all. You could just leave it and let your fish/bacteria do the work. I lost a panda a while back never to be found.

Small fish I certainly don't worry about. If I lost a Keyhole, or an Angel, that's when I'd begin to worry about the tank fouling. I've had a copy of young Cory's of about 2-3 months die in the past week. They've not developed properly, still look as if they're a few weeks old. I've left them for the young Bristlenose.

This is one for the Bio-toper's, you want realism, you've got to let your fish eat each other!