Bad News , Good News, Bad News

[The_Watcher]

Well I went down to the basement this morning, only to find a dead Red Dorsal Rainbow Macro
floating in the 150 gallon tank that originally had 14 Macros in it and has 12 Kaiser Famula...
Now I am down to 11 Red Macros ... I think.... This was the second largest male in the tank.
Anytime I don't feed them for a whole day..... something like this happens. I don't understand it.
These guys are evil .... I will dig in my junk area and look for an automatic fish feeder...
I know that I have one laying around.

The good news is that there are 2 females holding and for a split second I saw a baby in the tank.
I don't know if it is a Kaiser Famula baby or a Red Macro baby.

The bad news is this tank's population is slowly being worn down.....

[newb]

should I cheer??? hopefully the females spit for you. My macro fry came out huge.

[geoff_tropheus]

how long you had these fishes?

[russ]

feel for ya bro!
i've come to accept losing a petro here and there.
part of keeping these mean *** fish!
i just wonder if they didnt act the way they do...would i even keep them?

[The_Watcher]

how long you had these fishes?

Original Macros 2/2009(2 trios) , lost 3 ... then in 8/2009 added 8/3 Macros... put the 12 Famula Kaiser with the 14 Macros in a 150 gallon tank.
Now I am down to 11 or so Macros , Famula count is 11.

As I am recovering from recent back surgery ... sometimes I just don't feel like going down to the basement....
It is these times that I have seen this crap go on ( loss of a petro(s) ).... I only feed twice a day..... Can't put automatic feeders on all of my tanks..
Too much $$$ .... but calculating the loss of petros ... it might have been cheaper to install auto feeders....
4 out of 5 times missing a whole day without feeding resulted in the same outcome.... Maybe they are not getting enough to eat when I feed them ?

[myjohnson]

Weeding out the weak!

Congrats Frank.

[newb]

get a feeder for that tank and feed small amounts several times a day. When I had a lot of time to put into mine that is what I would do and it worked for me. I was feeding like 5x a day but only very small amounts each time. like half a teaspoon.

[tbui1178]

hopefully your females spit for you so you can build your colony up again.

[cichlid1409]

hate to hear bad news like that. never cool losing a fish but like russ said, something you kinda get used to.