Vanishing cheni

[Tinman]

HMMMM, When I lost my tin foils to my Bichir it grew a lot that next week. You might try some guppys as food to see if this might help grow yer fishys and prove they are carnivorious.If you can get the gups through QT without making them pets

[Martin Thoene]

We have to remember that Spotties have only been kept for a short time by any of us. Certainly they are extremely domineering at times. whether this extends to being killers would be basically out of hillstream general character, but who knows?

As regards the dissapearance of cheni, I've been keeping them for nearly 9 years and breeding them successfully for 6. I've had countless adults and babies live in my tanks and I've only ever found maybe 10 bodies in that time. They do just dissapear when they die unless a recently dead one happens to end up in a visible position and I remove it.

The question here is if we assume they have died, then why?

Martin.

[Emma Turner]

I don't think the Spotties are aggressive to the point of harming other fish, just a bit territorial when it comes to food and shady hiding spots.

On a side note, I have several females that I am actually a little worried about. They are of enormous proportions (look fit to burst) and I am wondering if they are egg-bound.

MD - any sign of the missing hillies today?

Also, forgot to ask, do you think the water temperature has been ok? Sewellia seem to be able to cope with spells of higher temperature, whereas other hillstream loach species may not. Just a thought.

Emma

[Mad Duff]

On a side note, I have several females that I am actually a little worried about. They are of enormous proportions (look fit to burst) and I am wondering if they are egg-bound.

MD - any sign of the missing hillies today?

Also, forgot to ask, do you think the water temperature has been ok? Sewellia seem to be able to cope with spells of higher temperature, whereas other hillstream loach species may not. Just a thought.

Emma

I am a little worried about my two female Sewellia lineolata, they are very very rotund (best description I could come up with ). The male is constantly displaying around them but they don't seem interested

No sign of the hillies today they have definitely vanished.

There is a fan on the tank that is on a timer and comes on for an hour every 4 hours and it keeps the temperature down to around 76' to 77'.

[dlenn]

AWW, Mad Duff

Not able to offer much advice I'm afraid.

Cheni are not normally shy or secretive (at least ours aren't). It sounds very odd indeed for them to not even be coming out for food.

Although after a tank tidy up a couple of weeks ago one of our Anamea's has disappeared completely and the Wui are a constant worry hiding all the time.

The only thing I can think of, although it sounds odd for Cheni is if the Sewellia have over dominated them and have scared them so much that they are now hiding under the stones. A couple of our dominant male Cheni (both ex-alphas) after being deposed went to hide for a while and are only now coming out again and one of our smaller anamea seems to be at the bottom of the pile for food though he is obviously bigger than the cheni.

Not many baby cheni lately either. We think the snails are eating the eggs!

Hope your Cheni reappear! I doubt 9 bodies could vanish or be eaten and disappear that completely!

Regarding fit to bursting females some of our female Cheni seem to be in that state most of the time. The current alpha is not quite sure what to do and I don't think they like him that much!

[Mad Duff]

Cheni are not normally shy or secretive (at least ours aren't). It sounds very odd indeed for them to not even be coming out for food.

That's what first got my attention, the cheni were visible 99% of the time and always first to the food at feeding time. I have been feeding the foods that they seemed to like most and sitting for 40 minutes and more in front of the tank but nothing, the 1 remaining male cheni which is one of the ones I got off Les seems to be quite shy now for what ever reason.

I did take a dead Gastromyzon ocellatus out of the tank yesterday but I am not starting to panic yet, it had almost certainly just died as it hadn't really lost any colour and there were no signs of illness or disease and it was nicely filled out so hadn't starved or anything, these were a good size when I got them some time ago so I would be inclined to say it was an old fish