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.

Categories: Random Thoughts

Tagged as: detective work Fish tank drama tetra disappearance

singlikewildflowers

Welcome to my blog! My name is Esther and I'm so happy you are here. I'm an avid nature photographer and a daydreaming thinker. My posts revolve around photos of nature's beauty, homeschooling adventures with my 2 kids, sporadic reflections on my child's heart condition, Bible reading reflections, gardening feats, and other mish mash things. Hopefully you'll leave encouraged, pensive, or smiling at the simple things of life. Thank you for stopping by and hope you'll find some interesting posts to read!