# Fish Disappearing



## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

Hello,

I've noticed over the past 3 weeks a couple of my fish have disappeared. I lost 2 forktail rainbowfish, 1 harlequin rasbora, and most recently a decent sized boesemani rainbowfish (3"). At first I thought my banjo catfish may have been eating the fish or something of the sort, but I can't believe that a 6" banjo catfish could eat an entire boesemani rainbowfish without any signs of a body at all. I have kribensis, dwarf gourami, boesemani rainbows, rasbora, bnp, orinoco angel pleco, corydoras, and a rainbow shark. I also checked behind my tank in case one jumped out but nothing is there. Does anyone have any idea what might be going on?


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

a catfish can easily eat half length of its body. I am not surprise. They have a fast digestive system.


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## kim86 (Sep 5, 2012)

Your other fish may have had something to do with it, too. A lot of times, if a fish dies naturally and isn't noticed quickly enough, the other fish in the tank will eat it, bones and all. Have you checked underneath/beneath ornaments yet? At least if your fish ate them, you don't have to really worry about your water parameters changing from rotting dead fish. That sucks, though! Those are nice fish.


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

I never leave my tank alone for very long, the longest period being about 10 hours for work. I have looked underneath all of the ornaments and everything in my tank too. I just can't see how anything could have eaten the whole fish within a few hours. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if anything else disappears.


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## Immus21 (Jun 14, 2010)

Could they have jumped out and fallen behind your tank? If so check underneath and/or behind your stand, I've had it happen on a few occasions.


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

charles said:


> a catfish can easily eat half length of its body. I am not surprise. They have a fast digestive system.


Since it's a banjo catfish, the tail is probably 4" and the body is 2" so the rainbowfish are actually bigger than the body of the catfish. the rainbowfish are also wider than the catfish. Is it still possible it would eat them?


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

it is very possible it's more about the size of their mouth then their body. Where there is a will there is a way. I recently had my Raphael cat try to eat a platy twice as wide as his mouth (pic here on post 82: http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/my-75-update-4-3-13-a-25400/#post304401). And have seen many instances of catfish eating things much bigger than can be imagined.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

I always like to use this as an example:

A 5" gulper catfish before eating:










After eating a fish that is about 3.5" Parrot fish:










And it was back to normal in about 1 day...

Your banjo cat is not going to be anything like the gulper catfish. But they can eat big thing. Rule of thumb, study how the position of a fish mouth will tell you what type of fish they are... especially a catfish with mouth in the front of the fish... it is a hunter.


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