Fish Fights!

[Elle]

Well, we started off our new year on a not-so-great note fish wise.

New Year's Day my betta, Spike, passed away from old age. We'd had him nearly 2 years, and he was fully grown when we got him. He'd been slowing down for a while, so it wasn't unexpected.

Yesterday the clown loaches murdered the silvertip bristlenose in the rainbow tank (either that or he got into a tiff with the albino bristlenose, but I'm blaming the loaches).

The mated pair of kribs produced a whole pile of cute little kriblets over xmas (yay!). Then on Monday the female apparently decided that she wanted to be a single parent and beat the crap out of the poor male. I found him drifting around upside down, and moved him out of their tank in with the guppies to recover, but I don't know if he'll make it.

And finally, I had to remove my apple snail from the goldfish tank while I treated THEM for ich, and made the mistake of placing him with the nasty loach in isolation. He'd lived with the loach before, so I thought they would be fine. Nope. The loach chewed a giant hole in the poor snail's foot, and while he perked up a bit yesterday when I put him in the guppy tank, I think he's a goner too.

I really hope this is just a case of getting all the disasters over with at once!

[onefishtwofish]

hopefully like you say you've had your bad luck streak for the year already

[cichlid]

That sucks! I had one casualty, a zebra danio jumpered about 2 ft onto the floor where I found him dead and crusted lol but that many casualties is crazy!

[Elle]

Yeah, I'm really hoping that this is it. Having it all happen in a few days is really depressing. In good news, the krib and apple snail are still alive, so hopefully they make it.

[Morainy]

Oh, too bad, Elle!

I didn't know that clown loaches could be aggressive. I have been babysitting 2 clown loaches and a bristlenose for several months, almost a year, and I had them in the same tank with my own Bolivian rams. The loaches kept to the back of the tank, which was planted, so I really didn't know what they were up to. But I did notice that my rams always looked stressed and were never able to raise their fry. Now, I can guess why!

I thought that clown loaches were basically the same as striped corydoras, from a personality perspective. But, I guess not!

I hope that your remaining fish bounce back and have a good year.