fish living in filter

[Valous]

So after setting up my 210 gal tank last Tuesday. I have started loosing fish. First was a 4.5 inch pictus catfish.. didnt see him any were. then on Friday I lost a small blue acara. no sign but didnt have time to check the filter. Well this morning I feed them and watched and come to realize I am not also missing a 3inch giant danio. They are all in the same tank that is ran by a hard plumbed fx5.

So I started to clean the filter found the skull of the catfish stuck in the plumbing. he must have blocked the other 2 fish from going cause i fired the filter up for a second and watched to dark things fly down the clear tube concecting the hard pipe and the fluval. So i cleaned out the filter to find both acar and giant danio alive. Anyone else lose a fish in there filter?

 

[Cleanbio]

it happened to me before with kuli loaches and neon tetras, but you can add some sponge or mesh like alternatives around the filter intakes to prevent them from getting in.

 

[Valous]

yea i just am surprised the cat fish was a fatty so didnt think he got up in there. but i found him decayed this morning the other 2 when i was cleaning out the filter. I am working on that part asap dont need to lose any more.

 

[GhostShrimpMan]

GL ;]

 

[balton777]

I found 7 tiny little grammodes in my filter. They're stunted but I'm hoping since maybe they were only in there for a few months, maybe they're not too badly deformed if or when they start to grow.

I had a thread about them and 3 other people found live fish in their filter too.

 

[Valous]

it was funny when i started draining it and pulled the baskets out i was dumb found to find the giant danio... then i was about drain the rest of the water to wash out the bit of sand that was in the bottom i say the blue acara he is a little over an inch.. all swimming around like nothing happend. though the blue is a little scrapped up.

 

[FLESHY]

I once lost a whole school of blue-green chromis out of a reef tank. I had forgotten to replace the filter intake when I cleaned the filter. This was two days after introducing them to my reef. Needless to say I was incredibly chagrined to discover my investment was gone. I opened up the filter to clean out the guts I was expecting to find filling my canister and, BOOM! One live school of chromis were doing laps inside the canister. Those fish are so hardy we eventually had to flush them when we decided that they didnt go with the system anymore.

 

[tommyd]

I once brought a Pleco home from Petsmart. Apparently it was a female. She had a habit of climbing over the bio wheel in my filter. One day, while cleaning it after many months of not doing so, I was surprised to find around 10 or 15 baby plecos happily living among the algae covered walls.

 

[manlyfish]

I once lost a whole school of blue-green chromis out of a reef tank. I had forgotten to replace the filter intake when I cleaned the filter. This was two days after introducing them to my reef. Needless to say I was incredibly chagrined to discover my investment was gone. I opened up the filter to clean out the guts I was expecting to find filling my canister and, BOOM! One live school of chromis were doing laps inside the canister. Those fish are so hardy we eventually had to flush them when we decided that they didnt go with the system anymore.

you flushed life fish down the drain?

 

[JK47]

I had a thread about them and 3 other people found live fish in their filter too.

^ one of the 3 people was me. I started a thread about it with pics a couple years back (link below). Found a whole clutch of BN pleco fry in a HOT mag 250. All but one of them went to the LFS, I still have the one but it is stunted. Coming up on 2 years or so old and still only 2".

>>> http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205115