Oh my god ...

[carriej]

Worst story ever...A few days ago I got another cory to join my other two, and seen a little interesting critter called a skunk botia. So I got them both. I quickly noticed the botia seriously picking on my huge flame gourami (my favorite fish, may I add) so tonight I had to remove all decorations to catch the quick little botia, and put it in my sisters barb tank, since they are all fast and not slow moving like my gourami was. Anyway, once I put the decorations back where they were supposed to be, I noticed I had knocked the filter intake off, so I put it back on...but something wasn't right, the flow was slowed and making a funny noise. I just assumed it was because the filter was off for a few minutes, and went to check and see if all decorations were placed right. I noticed my huge gourami was missing. He is like 4 inches long, you can't miss him. So after much debating on what happened, I clued in. Filter. So I took it all apart, while my boyfriend told me ALL along he must be in there. I said NO he's somewhere in the tank...He was stuck in the bend in the intake. He was dead .... I removed him as gently as I could, and put him in my freezer for now, until I can bury him. He was my favorite fish. I could go get another...but none will ever be as big or as nice as he was. He would eat from my fingers. He always acted like he was too good for the rest of his tank mates. Alas...My LFS got a shipment of nice dwarf gouramis the other day..Maybe I'll pick one up. He was basically my centerpiece fish in my community aquarium. Any suggestions on "replacements"...Sounds so bad!

Note : the exact fish I lost is also my avatar

[jwurm]

I'm so sorry that that happened.

[Tommy Gun]

Sorry to hear that carriej. This happened to me once and like you, I refused to believe the fish got sucked up...for a couple of days even.

Even though I realize your thoughts are probably centered on the here and now, you might be able to prevent this from happening again by gluing the intak screen directly to the plumbing if you have the ability to seperate that plumbing from the filter in case you ever have to take the screen out to clean it or something. This was my solution because I realized that it was probably the very skittish nature of the fish that knocked the intake off. Since then, I have had to unclog the intake screen after a session of pulling hair algae off some rock and used one of those scrub brushes that will follow the plumbing until it reaches the inside of the screen. This may or may not be a viable option for you but I figured I would throw it out there anyways.

Keep your chin up!

[carriej]

Oh don't worry, I definitely learned from this one. After I had retrieved "sunny" from the filter, I placed him in my hand and showed my boyfriend, he looked at me and he's like..See, what did I tell you. I didn't realize the little end piece came off the bottom. Since when it came in the box it was already attached. Last night I adhered it together with some aquarium silicone. It's not going off again. My tank looks so empty now, even my boyfriend agrees. He definitely made the tank! I guess I'll just have to pass this off and a lesson well learned.

[cassb]

That's a real pretty fish - I'm sorry you lost him. Do you think he was sucked up into the filter and died that way, or that the botia killed him and then he got stuck in the filter?

I am thinking of maybe an all-gourami tank some time... they are such nice fish.

Bryan