Someone ate my cardinal....really?

[wasafuzz]

Morning everyone. My goal is to get on here and post everything I'd great, no problems! Today is NOT that day. Long story short. Had velvet, let tank go fallow , set up a QT with a Molly. One month later, finally able to buy fish. Bought a B. Cardinal and purple firefish….so 3 fish total. Two days later, the whole rear end of the Cardinal has been chewed off! Does anyone have any idea who the culprit is? I thought the other two were peaceful. Very depressing.

 

[VJM 21]

Morning everyone. My goal is to get on here and post everything I'd great, no problems! Today is NOT that day. Long story short. Had velvet, let tank go fallow , set up a QT with a Molly. One month later, finally able to buy fish. Bought a B. Cardinal and purple firefish….so 3 fish total. Two days later, the whole rear end of the Cardinal has been chewed off! Does anyone have any idea who the culprit is? I thought the other two were peaceful. Very depressing.

I had two black mollies is a QT...the bigger killed the smaller and ate about half of the dead fish before I got to the tank that day, so it happened in a relatively short period of time. I’d be surprised if it killed the cardinal though; they’re pretty timid with other species. My guess is that the cardinal was already dead or dying.

 

[Scdell]

Think you might have something else in the tank???

 

[kput]

I'd say it's more likely it got into a fight with a powerhead than a molly or firefish chomping half of it off

 

[wasafuzz]

Thanks, but she wasn't just dead or dying, she had her whole back end chewed off. No powerhead, just a small hob tetra filter. Guess the Molly wins as far as possible culprit. I did add a softball size life rock from main DT yesterday (fallow period over) but have never seen anything in main display that would warrant concern.

 

[clm65]

have never seen anything in main display that would warrant concern.

Do you have any crabs in your CUC that would normally not be aggressive? If so, did you feed your tank during the fallow period? Hunger may drive normally docile creatures to become aggressive.

Years ago, I caught an emerald crab (I think) in my tank and put him in my sump. I failed to keep him fed well (I know, shame on me). A week or so later I caught a beautiful peacock mantis shrimp, about the same size as the crab. I added him to the sump too. It took about 5 seconds for that crab to attack the mantis shrimp and devour him. I assume it was hunger that triggered the response.

 

[wasafuzz]

Yeah, ghost fed the fallow tank. Don't have any cuc in QT. Nothing in added rock that I'm aware of.

 

[tautog83]

Killer black mollliessss they dont get velvet they eat itttt. That is odd though especially if there was no signs of like an infection night before . If theres a chunk of live rock in there , ya never know.....