Our neon tetra population has been in steady decline, which I wrote about recently. About a month ago, four tetra suddenly became three. It disappeared. We searched everywhere in the tank and even cleaned out the filter to see if it had gotten stuck in it. Nothing.
But this afternoon, both kiddos spruced up our 10 gallon tank with a new rock hide-out sculpture and suction-cup faux leaves, aka Betta hammocks. Usually, our fish and loach take time familiarizing themselves with changes in their habitat until they get comfortable to explore. Not today. Two of the loaches, named Loa and Ches, quickly claimed their spot under the leaves by the sand. Two little heads sticking out of them looked like a perfect picture opportunity.
However, when I reviewed the pictures afterwards, I was shocked by what I found.
On the picture, right on top of the sand, was the skeletal figure of a fish that had the shape of a loach, but that couldn’t be since the two loaches were looking at us from under the leaves. Also, its body was not as long as a loach. The black eyes stared out at me and kiddos looked at it with their magnifying glasses against the tank. Ahhhhhhh, it’s probably the remains of the disappeared tetra. We know this because a catfish that died in the past had only some of its fish outline intact and eyeball sockets.
What in the world? Somehow, this tetra had been floating around or was buried deep in the sand until it was sifted through today. How it didn’t get sucked up during water change is amazing.
For us fish drama continues with all kinds of shenanigans from our swimmy friends and some mysteries get solved while others get overlooked for lack of evidence or disinterest. Through it all, we have unintentionally discovered the buried remains of a lost fish and have spotted it in the photo. We feel like Sherlock Holmes would be proud of our detective skills.
3 responses to “Missing tetra…kinda found”
That’s rough. And you take such good care of them too.
Our fish population declined by half. It is full of surprises. We felt bad for the schooling tetras and got them 4 more pals. Immediately, they started swimming together. We have a full tank now, with 6 tetras, 3 loaches, and 4 catfish, and 1 large tetra (we call him the assassin). They’re going pretty good. Kids really want me to bring out the 20 gallon but I’m taking my sweet old time. It’ll be great to have a bigger tank but switching is a big ol pain in the butt. Maybe when I’ve had enough coffee and good night sleep…I may do it.
This one is easier to clean though and you said you end up cleaning it, even though the kids volunteered to help. 🙂 Do it for Summer vacation and you can recruit the kids (if you decide to do it again). It means more new fish to buy too.