playfull behaviour or intended murder?

[mikev]

Useful perhaps.... would be nice to try to make sure that this was a murder, not just playing with a dead body.

[Maarten B]

first, photos of the original, witnessed kill:

here, the newly introduced halved fish, still alive, being handled bij a yoyo:

here, floating after it was released after the second clown attack:

this week, i did not see them handling the already dead rainbow. but fish dont just die without showing signs of disease. he ate, acted, and swam normally the day before.
when i found it, it was floating against a cannisterintake. no other fish near. this is how i pulled it out:


either it has a flesh eating bacteria that came out of nowhere, or it was attacked by another fish. how else can the throat break open like this? why is one eye missing and one intact, and what tore up the tailfin? and most of all, why is the gill on the missing eye side so rough and broken up on the edge?

sorry about the nasty nature of the photos. i want to know the cause to this, so incompatible (sized) fish won't be added to the tank, even if they are considered good tankmates.

[Loachloach]

Is it the yoyos or the clowns doing it? Yoyos are a different story.

I honestly can't believe the clowns would kill fish like this, well at least judging by my clowns. They are sweetie pies.

Edit: Ok, I reread it again, the clowns did it

It's really odd. I know fish get aggressive if something is not quite right. Maybe the addition of a few more will settle them or maybe yours are just plain mean clown loaches. Mine would have been out the window if they did that

[mikev]

Hmm... they probably did do it. Then they will do it again... and again. Sorry.

[Maarten B]

Hmm... they probably did do it. Then they will do it again... and again. Sorry.

might just be natural behaviour they first need to learn. So you must be right. I noticed them reacting to the flapping tails of the gastros, though as soon as they see what the tail is attached to, they move on.
I do now fear for the smaller rainbowgirls and for the adopted tetras, although they move slower and might not trigger the hunting instinct.
No plans on ditters now, but after a clean up by the murderers i might add more (large!!!) miss Keralas, since 2 of prettyest died in a years time after bonking their head.

[mikev]

You know, there was a movie about your fish.

I suspect that once they know how much fun it is to dismember a small rainbow they will apply the skills to larger targets....

[Maarten B]

You know, there was a movie about your fish.
....

i also ran in to them in GTA 5. Endless amounts of murdering clowns coming out of deliveryvans there

[Maarten B]

And an update here aswell.

because of redoing the sump system, the next rainbow went into the main tank. It was the only one left. The smaller one was eaten by the beeshrimps. She turned out to be a he. Another "boesemani+preacox bastard". Body colored like a boesemani girl, but bright red fins, preacox shine and v-shaped tail. Looks a bit better than his predecessor. Started impressing the girls right away.
He is in the main tank for over a month now. No loach has bothered to attack him yet. But it is time they start killing:
The rebuild included a few extra pumps. And i shortened cannisterhoses.and i added a sump/buffer/qtank under the sump. All this makes for a lot more current through the main tank, flushing more eggs and fry down to the first sump. On top of that, a recent heatwave, followed by cooler weather makes for a sump with baby shimp, baby pondsnails, baby helenasnails, nerite eggs, mts babys, 30 baby bristlenoseplecos and 16 babyrainbows. All babyfish are well past the 2nd-weak-dying-off-point. Anyone interested in keeping them?
i have been thinking of just throwing them in the lions denn, but i have tried it before, and i wimp out every time. Any ideas what to do with the fry?

[NancyD]

Can you trade them in your local fish store for credit towards food etc? Many years ago my husband & I bred a few of the "easy breeder" cichlids until no shop within many miles would take them any more...I share your distaste for intentionally feeding larger fry to loaches or other fish; eggs, tiny fry, shrimp & snails not so much...

[mikev]

Any ideas what to do with the fry?

Start a new tank for them. It is not nice to feed them to other fish and it is not nice to dump them into lfs -- hybrids should not be distributed generally.

Best thing is simply not to breed rainbowfish unless it is a species tank.

[Maarten B]

I will start looking for a good home for the fry, and for the whole ancistrus family too. I signed up with some local fora, since that would be the best place to find knowledgeable enthousiasts, to give each specific fish a suitable home.

The pair of bristlenoses are about 8 years old, coming from my sisters tank. She moved and couldnt keep them, so I reluctantly took them in, put them in the sump to clean off algea. Ofcourse, i reseached them. Never expected them to breed succesfully, since pleco fry is said to be very delicate and rarely lives past 2 weeks without proper special care. This was how it went before. I can't explain why this batch did survive.

As for the rainbows, i knew they breed when buying them, but, like the previous ones, expected just the occasional survivor, because:
The boesemanis are "going at it" every morning, and only once in a few monts would we see one or two 0.5mm tiny fry (eyes on a tail) in the sump, most of them dissapearing or being caught by shrimp. The female praecox was/is the only longtime homebred survivor. The first, now killed, hybrid was the second one. The baby from the snailtank was number 3, and i recently added the 4th. This all in a timespann of 4 years!
So no, i don't wish to breed rainbowfish, or any other fish for that matter. One or two baby's a year are fun and i can explain it to myself as "natural" selection, deserving a place in the main tank. 16 surviving baby rainbows every few weeks will become a problem, like NancyD's example.
I do wish to breed the shrimp in the sump, so i will put all fry in the qtank when too big to get caught in the pump in it.