Ornament trap

While reading up on Planaria the other day I saw a photo of a Clown Loach in the book and immediately panicked. I realised that I had not seen my 2 precious Clowns for a while.
They were too big to be eaten by other fish and too much of a coincidence that they both jump out at the same time so the search began.

Long, and sad, story short I found them inside this ornament...very dead.Don't know if I am more sorry for their loss or guilty not to have noticed sooner.
They can only have got into it while it was lying on the bottom during a water change or something like that otherwise if they found their way in you would expect them to get out again.

Just to let you all know about this ornament, and I suspect many others of this type. I have now covered the opening at the base with netting.

Processor.

That's a shame, but at least you'll know not to let it happen again. I have some similar ornaments but always make sure there's a couple of gaps underneath as my Khuli loach love it inside, and my male Betta tends to squeeze underneath too at times. Good idea about the netting though.

Libby

I have 8 clown loach in my planted tank, and yet I can never find them.
The most I have seen was 4 at any time.

They, get this, go in to the _filter_ in the jewel 240. I actually have two "built-in" jewel filters in this tank -> one which i had removed from the marine tank.

I am dredding filter cleaning time! and its today!!!

I think I shall remove the additional filter entirely and turn it upside down into a siphoned water basin, and watch all 8 clowns drop into it. I wonder if they are breeding in the filter?

Seems to be hard brreding them, PH is way lower than below :
freshaquarium.about.com/cs/loaches1/p/clownloach.htm

But water is supersoft -> GH2 , KH2 PH 6ish.

Well....were they there ?

Would be nice to breed them I think they are a lovely fish and what character.

And that is why I hate to buy fake molded crap.
Well just one reason anyway.
I don't even like having the fake plants I do at the moment, in case the syno takes his eye out on a pointy leaf or something.

Very sad story Processor, you just kick yourself for making sillly mistakes eh?

Oh yeah, they were there all right, all 8 of them.
I emptied the tank completely and its just getting itself in order for the LR and coral migration any day soon.

I have another thread for that one, pics on the way -- where's that camera!

The loaches all grew substantially in their little home, prior to the move, I put in some castles for them to move to, no joy. The only came out late at night for feeding and if I moved near the tank, they all went straight back into the filter!

It tooks ages getting them out of it, as its the built in, impossible to remove jewel filter!

Anyway, I had a big fish kill when I overfed them in their new home -- an outside black dustbin which had a _mature_ filter from their home.
I must have cleaned out too much of the bacteria as the next day, there was a massive kill - tons of guppies, all the beautiful tetras I had, not sure about the rest as I have no fed them, or ventured into the bin since.

The bin stank of decaying fish so I removed all the dead, and did a big water change. No more smell now, so will start feeding the remaining fish tomorrow. What a disaster eh! I must have had 100 fish in that dustbin - no idea what is left now. This has never happened to me, must have been new tank syndrome (even with a mature jewel filter).

New tank looks lovely though, really needed due to over growing coral, and the tank water will not vary so much due to the greater water volume - 100Litres to 240Litres. Dont know what I'll do with the other tank, its a beauty, and they dont make them any more, so I do not really want to sell it. Do I? :roll: