Disappearing Guppies

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Amy in: Guppies

About 5 weeks ago (1/19/09) I set up a 16 gallon biOrb tank and got 3 cute little guppies from PETCO. During checkout, the lady reminded me that they have a policy where they will replace your fish for free if they die for some reason within 14 days…that’s pretty cool!

Well, I must say I was pretty pleased with the whole setup that I ended up with. The plants that I had gotten, the black river stones, and especially the pink-leaved bonsai and red torii that I arranged in the tank, along with the 3 color-coordinated fish, felt perfectly right. It was exactly what I wanted and it gave the living room a pleasant Feng Shui feel.

Anyway, 10 days after I brought my guppies home, I lost one of them, literally! It vanished into thin air and was no where to be found. I searched high and low, even taking out all of the decor and half of the river stones I had in there…nothing. It seemed unlikely that the other two little guppies would have ate him whole within the span of one night, leaving no skeleton or any other trace. For the next few days, I kept looking and was surprised by my own sadness at losing him. After all, how attached could I possibly have been to a $3 fish that I had for only 10 days?

I thought about the PETCO fish replacement policy but decided that it probably didn’t cover disappearing fish…plus, who would believe me?

After a brief period of mourning, I made another trip to the store because guppies are “community fish”. Two fish didn’t seem to qualify as a “community”. This time I went to PetSmart and came home with 3 more guppies (2/4/09).

Then yesterday, I lost another fish…and it wasn’t even over night this time. WTF?! I’m not sure if I’m more confused, angry, or sad. Having already experienced the loss of my first fish, I knew right away that I would never see this second lost fish again. I stopped by a different PetSmart on the way home from work today and got (yes) 3 more guppies. I’m wondering how long it’ll be before another one goes missing. Thinking about it is a tiny bit depressing, as if I just have to accept the fact that fish will periodically disappear from my tank until the end of time…

One thing that did make me feel a little better is that there seems to be plenty of other people experiencing the same thing. Try Googling “disappearing guppies” and you’ll find a million other stories that sound just like mine.

At this point, I’m going to refrain from naming any of them until I’m sure that they’ll stick around.

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  • engineermomof7

    I really feel for you. We too have disappearing guppies. We watched our gourami eat one, so we got rid of it — but we just lost another guppy and a danio. An employee at PetCo suggested that while our algae eaters (we have 2) are non-aggressive, they are large enough to remove any trace of a fish that sits on the bottom too long, recovering from an accidental fin nip from another fish or other normally recoverable injury. I have no idea, but as beautiful as guppies are, I think we are switching to an entirely tetra / cory/ platy/ algae eater tank. We just can't keep the guppies from disappearing, even though everyone tells me we have only community fish in the tank.

  • OCTEP1657

    You are killing your fish by adding more when one dies. Your tank was new and the beneficial bacteria was not present to convert the guppy waste into less harmful by-products. This can take 6-12 weeks to establish. You kept adding them to a death sentence. Fish bodies can disappear quickly due to decomposition and their tank buddies nibbling on the body.

  • OCTEP1657

    You are killing your fish by adding more when one dies. Your tank was new and the beneficial bacteria was not present to convert the guppy waste into less harmful by-products. This can take 6-12 weeks to establish. You kept adding them to a death sentence. Fish bodies can disappear quickly due to decomposition and their tank buddies nibbling on the body.

  • Chunkymonkey45

    I wouldnt start out with guppies when i first had them they would always die within a few days. try platies while they dont have the same beautiful fins they have the color and are much hardier

  • guppy

    Have you checked you water level's. Try checking the water levels and you can check them by taking some water in a pot and ask the person at the till if the water could be tested! Or if it isn't that then buy some bacteria product, (the person at the till my help you by what you need.) Your Pleco could of eaten them and also guppies are hard to look after so try some other fish, like Platy's and Mollies. Also I had a Guppy and the male one died after 2days which I think one of them nipped him or he died after a old age.
    Hope that helped.

  • Chelsie Cool

    are u dull the guppys got in the bubble tube thing duhhh

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