First dead fish :(

Hi Guys,

Left to work at 6pm and arrived back at 6am only to find one of my smaller peacock malawis dead in front of the tank.. no water spills around and theres no gaps in the tank lid? Apart from the middle top. I have no idea how he got there? He was bone dry when I picked him up.

The other fish seem okay, temp is normal, I put some food in and they were feeding like normal. First fish I found like that in the 4 months ive had the tank. I did change tank mates though in the last 2 weeks. I removed all the females and only added males I kept 4 original males and my 3 plecos. Bought 2 jewel cichlid, one aurata (looks like a female), 2 small peacocks still black.

I can only assume he dived to the bottom and somehow jumped straight through the top of the lid..but what the hell for and why now? Haha. Any thoughts?

As you can see, only one exit

 

Hmmmmm. One of the first Tetra I got did the same thing.... Just decided to end it all, jumped through a gap. Psycho...

 

Sometimes other fish try to chase any particular fish away from a area and he tried to run away, most likely he headed for the water surface and by chance jumped out through that hole.

 

Could be depression... You should get your fish a glass box filled with humans. They love to watch em swim about.... It's very therapeutic for them.

 

What is the purpose of the opening in your hood?
Put a piece of perspex on to cover it, problem solved, ....no need to do a postmortem into the psyche of the 'suicide jumper' or other causes.

 

00% correct.

 

I cut the hole in there to alleviate the condensation that formed on the lid at night by letting co2 out. So it serves a purpose lol. Ill take being chased as probable cause haha

 

Just put some egg crate over. It will sort it out.

 

I see there's an ad on TV whete all of the fish merrily leap out of the water and land back in the tank... Maybe you could get their fish whisperer to have a word with yours? Just brain storming here...

 

Just get a fine mesh to cover the hole