project black devil cat in a 300g community!

[justarn]

Right help me out guys.... as the previous pic shows I bought a beauty of a 19 inch channa diplogramma as the wyckiis tank mate and wake up in the morning to a dead snakehead!!!! I put it down to shock initially, in my dismay I went out today and bought a 23 inch giant snakehead. .. just found it dead before one night has passed!!!! Either I have a disease that kills only snakeheads in half a day, or big snakeheads die easily when moved when large?? ? Or.... my wyckii silently kills big snakeheads for fun... I was asleep in my lounge this evening 4 foot away.. and why dont he kill the cichlids... could a 14 inch wyckii kill a 23 inch micro? Pic from earlier...

Sent from my GT-I9195 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Heart-breaking. Would you care asking on the snakehead forum and reporting back here? No parasite or bacteria kills so quickly. Something else is very wrong.

 

[justarn]

I know, I was devastated losing the diplo... The micro was a silly decision anyway but still a sad loss! as unlikely as it seems I'm thinking the wyckii done it. Both done fine during the time the light was on and looked to be doing well, I think once the lights went out the wyckii came out, but why not kill the cichlids while they sleep?

Sent from my GT-I9195 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Wouldn't you see the signs of violence on the corpses?

 

[justarn]

i wondered but they was both a little beat up from the move, you know what snakeheads are like... the diplo had various marks from the capture and the micro jumped twice from the poly box when he was getting him in... plus with the devil having no teeth i dunno, a few months back i caught him holding a small micro like a dog with a bone so i guess its quite possible with one good grip he could drown them or judging on the speed he flies out his cave after the cichlids maybe a few good rams would cause internal damage... ive posted on the snakehead forums and no as of yet is confirming that large snakeheads travel bad... the tank is maintained meticulously so water quality isnt an issue. they had 4 inch of breathing space, that just leaves disease or the wyckii imho??

a month or so ago i thought i had cotton mouth in my tank on 'one' fish which i quarantined and treated with a direct application of meth blue as well as treating the whole tank with tetracycline. aquanero said the tetracycline would do nothing with my water chemistry and gave me other guidelines which unfortunately i couldn't follow due to work, stock, and the un-availability of meds here in the uk.. anyway long story short the fish healed and survived so im guessing i miss diagnosed some fungus... so hardly worth mentioning but hey we all type our thoughts here right lol...

on the same note as you are probably thinking as well as me, its hard to believe a wyckii thats less than a quarter the weight of that huge snakehead could kill it...
guessing i'll never know for sure... i do know throughout my internet searching the fact that wyckii are capable off killing fish twice their size is raised on various sites! and as we all know they are considered a one tank fish maybe even more so than a micro!

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Wyckiis and snakeheads live in the same waters in the wild, do they not? I wonder if wyckiis are wired to take out the competition. Does you research reveal the mode of action of wyckii's killing? Not knowing, I'd imagine it is constant bullying -> stress -> disease but that takes time to develop. How does an overnight kill occur of a fish they cannot really swallow or tear to pieces? Snakeheads are not obligatory air breathers, are they?

 

[BuffaloPolypteridae]

^yes they are, honestly I'm not surprised the wyckii killed it. I've seen a few different stories about smaller fish killing snakeheads on here, including a common wolf fish that was 4 inches smaller then the GSH and killed the snakehead.

It probably grabbed it and held it under, do wyckii cats death roll things? That could have been a way to kill it pretty quick if they do

Sent from my DROID4 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[justarn]

Ive not seen mine deathroll but I have witnessed him holding onto the small snakehead... also my cichlids occassionally show signs of a good grip on their back lower fin! As We all know if a fish sees another as a threat its more of a problem, large cichlids for example often ignore smaller cichlids but put a cichlid of similar size in and all hell breaks loose. Maybe if he was hungry the cichlids would be predated on, he knows they arnt a threat to him though unlike a snakehead much larger than him. Maybe he had a bad experience with snakeheads before I got him, I had an african pike a while back that was picked on by a slightly larger micro, he eventually snapped and nearly killed it and weeks later I tryed a gc snakehead and he went crazy attacking it! Fish do remember contrary to the goldfish have a 9 second memory belief, even goldfish recognise the net and food pot from outside the tank!

 

[justarn]

water change and swap around allows some devil snaps! he is estimated at 15 inch now i attempted to net him but the general wasnt happy and rather than risk any serious damage i decided to encourage him to the glass and get a tape measure against the glass measurement... he has a few marks and isnt too happy ive given him a cave right at the front!-)

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Lovely shots.

... Maybe he had a bad experience with snakeheads before I got him, I had an african pike a while back that was picked on by a slightly larger micro, he eventually snapped and nearly killed it and weeks later I tryed a gc snakehead and he went crazy attacking it! Fish do remember contrary to the goldfish have a 9 second memory belief, even goldfish recognise the net and food pot from outside the tank!

IDK. I think that Pavlov-dog-style learned instincts correspond to the long-term memory and are learned by many repetitions of the same event sequence, while that 15-sec idea refers to the short-term memory. As many fishermen attest to, it is not uncommon at all to catch the same fish on the same hook and bait only minutes apart... which also leads some to think fish do not feel pain (much).