Lost a fish... any way to prevent more losses?

[hamstercaster]

It's nothing major, just one of my Zebra Danios.. he got stuck on the filter intake and died there unless he died before and got sucked up afterwards.. we don't know.  I've never seen any of them get caught or sucked onto the filter intake before even though they often swim very close to it so I'm thinking he may have died beforehand... but in any event, is there a way to prevent fishies to get sucked onto the filter intake?  Just in case that is what happened...

thank you

[beowulf]

Cover it with something like pantyhose a lot of people do that in fry tanks.

[gonna_b_no_1]

get a filter sponge, cut a hole into it and slip it onto the intake of your filter.  

Bonus is that it'll act as a pre-filter.

Cleaning it is simple, take it off the intake and wrinse it out in old tank water, and slip it back on  

[hamstercaster]

Cool, thanks for the quick answers.

Yvon

[BigDaddy]

Honestly, unless you had a massive filter, a healthy danio shouldn't get trapped to an intake.  Most likely he died beforehand (or was too sick to swim).

[hamstercaster]

Thanks Big Daddy.. the problem is though that I have not notice any of the Danios looking weak or sick.  They have all been eating well, swimming lots and chasing each other from time to time.  Perhaps one got stressed out being chased around that much or finally got killed by one off the other Danios.  Maybe he was sick but didn't look sick... I'll keep a close eye on how things are evolving in the tank and see if there are any other casualties, be it being sucked in onto the intake or just laying at the bottom of the tank...

thank you

[hamstercaster]

My wife just called... we lost another zebra the same way today... Hope that doesn't spell disaster.  She said that all the fishies look healthy.  They all swim well and chase each other.. I just don't know what to think anymore.  I'll check the water parameters when I get home...

[hamstercaster]

Lost a third one but I think I have found the culprit... Amonia was up.... Looks like either my cycle wasn't entirely done or something fishy happened (like adding two fishies)  Just did a 30% water change and will see how things go.

[fishycanuck]

Hamster - it happens.
Keep doing daily 10-20% water changes, and don't feed the fish for at least 2 days. They won't die of starvation!

[hamstercaster]

Thanks for the tip fishycanuck.  I did a 25% water change today and will keep doing some small water changes for the week.  Luckyly, these fishes were cheap and I am about to take them back to the store or give them away but still, it's never fun to see fishes die.  Thank you all for your help.. once again