2 already gone

[Airjammer]

I hl tank have a 55 gal tank with si 1 1/2" - 2" african cichlids, one 3" convict, and 1 Red jewel 4". last week one of my small cichlids just dissapeared. he was acting a little funny,hanging out in one spot,not coming up to eat. However he had no outward signs of sickness. I came home and he was GONE!! :? ,Missing!!! 8O  I moved everything around and couldn't even find a body. Then Friday Evening I noticed that my Yellow lab didn't come up to eat. He looked ok. I checked my water and everything was within normal parameters.
When I got home last night he was floating. I've only had the smaller fish for about 3 weeks and they were doing great.Everyone got along,good appetites, great entertainment.
What am I doing wrong? I have been workingt a lot of hours lately so I'm going to try to do a water change when I get home this evening. Any Suggestions would be helpful.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: 2 already gone

Please list your water parameters.

It could be that those cichlids killed and ate each other, jumped out or died for some reason and the others ate it.

[Zulaab]

Re: 2 already gone

Check your water please.
Make sure that you are using either Prime or Amquel to de-clorinate your water with.
Check to make sure that you have 0ppm Ammonia, Nitrites and less than 20ppm of Nitrates (0 is perfect).  You want to use a master kit and not a strip kit as they are notoriously bad at giving you the correct information.

How long has your tank been up and running ?
When you feed your fish, how often and how much ?  Are you making sure that all the food disappears in less than 2 minutes ?
Well a ton of questions and I am sure with you a ton of worries.. we will help you as much as possible :)

Keep smiling :)  Fish keeping is fun :)

[Airjammer]

Re: 2 already gone

Sorry it took so long to get back.
PH=7.2
Ammonia=0
Nirites=0
Nitrates Through the roof.
I feed only what they eat in about 2 minutes twice a day. Water is crystal clear,no smell,plenty of hiding places even though they hardly use them. They hang out near the top screaming feed me!!! I have done 2 partial water changes, and plan to do another this evening. This tank has been set up since October. I moved and when I set it back up it was doing fine, then it cycled and I lost all fish but the jewel. I have only kept the jewel and the convict in it until fathers day. My wife took me to Fish Gallery and I started stocking with Africans. all of the small ones have only been in there a few weeks. Thaks for all of the suggestions, I'm so glad I found this place!

[Zulaab]

Re: 2 already gone

Well the only way to get rid of Nitrates is to do water changes.
I would recommend starting to do 30-50% water changes each 2 weeks and you will never see this problem happen again.
Your Africans will need clean water so you will need to make sure that you can get 50% every two weeks at a minimum, and you need to raise that to like 50% each week if you get into fish that are more demanding of clean water...