in search of a suspect...........help!!

**nish** · 02-05-2013, 10:51 AM

my tank has redtail shark, rainbow shark ( 2-2 each), molly, neon tetra-4 and guppy-4..
few days back i had put 5 danios.... 2 days before i found trimmed tail of guppy and he/ she died after 1 day...
and after that i lost a neon tetra...
i m suspecting danios but 1 of the senior member of this forum is saying its shark...
m confused bcoz i found my shark very gentle.... never seen them hurting others... plz help!!

**genocidex** · 02-05-2013, 11:09 AM

for one, sharks are best left as 1 per aquarium. they can have bad tempurments and pick on any fish thats smaller, slower, weeker. they dont really prey on them its just an issue of them picking on them. most likely the issue is them staking out part of the aquarium as "theirs". a danio swims into this area and WAHM! no more tail. some times its jst too hard to see it happen. all the other fish are not none nippers. i know im the one who told you the shark before, just giving me reasons. im sure most of the other members will agree.

**Goes to 11!** · 02-05-2013, 11:29 AM

Gen - His guppys lost the tail not the danios - [Danios are prob too fast for the 'sharks' to catch anyway]

As far as the nipping goes, It could be any of the above. Danios can be nippy [Big fins are very tempting to them] in smaller numbers like you have them. IMO the deaths are due to one of the sharks. I am betting your tank is far too small for two of these particular sharks though [and possibly the danios also]. This is the real issue here.

What size tank is this?

**Triton** · 02-05-2013, 12:52 PM

+1 to all above, to have 4 sharks like that, even if they are all small you would need a larger tank, I don't think I'd trust them in my 55 let alone anything smaller...

I don't believe that the danios could remove an entire tail, but I haven't had guppies before, so it may be possible... Guppies really are kinda wimps, the danios are fast and belong in a longer aquarium but are ok with other fish since they can escape harm

Please provide some info on your tank (size, filters, hiding spaces avail)

**imma24** · 02-05-2013, 12:59 PM

I totally agree with all advice above - if you research those sharks, you will see that they need to have a tank to themselves - they don't live well with other fish species let alone others of their own kind.

Even if they are small (they all start off small), their aggressiveness is still there.