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I hadn't seen Digger in a few days. I was becoming very worried about him even though there is a tangle of driftwood and plants I just had a feeling something was wrong. And the tank had a slightly strange smell. Which I attributed to all the food for the babies.

Even tho there are babies everywhere in various stages of life I removed what I could and searched for him.

He was my teenage BN male. Not any of the just borns or prior borns, a medium sized adult, smallish still. He loved to dig and I always feared he would dig somewhere and something would collapse on him. I was always moving rocks and trying to get them flat cause he would dig under everything.

I found him dead under a cave. Here is apicture of him digging as he always did. He is to the right of the cave digging under,



He was my favourite BN, always up to mischief and digging. And it was the end of him. I always count my fish every day and I should have looked for him sooner but there are babies all over and I was afraid to disrupt them and I figured he was hiding somewhere which ws stupid cause he never hid.

Will teach me to go with my gut instinct more, I should have broken it down 2 or 3 days ago, maybe I could have saved him. But I was afraid to injure babies that are all over that tank. Those babies are smart tho, I never get them, I should have searched for him and not assumed he was just somewhere. I gave the tank a 50% water change and cleaned it well while I had most stuff out. I will do another 50% tomorrow.

How can I make sure it nevers happens again? I have driftwood, rocks , slate, caves... plants ....

Andywooloo - So sorry about your young'un. I suppose we could try to be sure that the heavy pieces or structures are at least resting on the floor if not engineered in a way so that they are fastened. Yet it is probable that the more complex and secure, the more difficult to take apart to clean.
Another note on what some might call Fishkeeping 101 that I have failed to remember is to allow navigational space between hard structures so that the creatures don't get their head's stuck. When Plecie was not strong, he fell between the tall (rough) rock that I had positioned to help support him to the top of the tank, - but got stuck sideways between the rock and aquarium wall.
There is alot to think about!

thank you. I am thinking about removing all the caves. I just do not know what to do. I can't believe it happenned.

I can rest the caves on the tank bottom. And remove some sand so it doesn't fall into the opening, or move it around. None of my other adults really dig like that at all. It was just him.

I know you do have to be very careful they do not injure themselves on decorations and make sure nothing falls on them. I can't even believe it happenned. I have caves in all my pl*co tanks and want to rip them all out. I was just trying to make their living environment what they like and look what i did.

You should certainly not remove all the caves - that will prevent the mature ones from breeding! However, placing the caves either directly on the glass bottom of the tank with no gravel, or with some suitable "spacer" of hard stuff that can't be moved by the fishes (this may involve some silicon glue to stick the spacer on so that it doesn't move away). Suitable spacer could be a piece of slate or plain wall/floor tile(s). This will prevent this sort of accident from happening. The same applies to all other rocks, wood and heavy objects that are in the tank. [And the other potential accident when fish are digging is that the rocks topple over and crush the glass, which is also more likely to happen if they are placed on top of the glass rather than on the glass itself].

For really large pieces of roch (especially if they are sharp) it is often recommended to put a soft foam (polstyrene for example) or "egg-crate" diffusers for flourescent light units [poor picture in this page http://www.ttclimited.co.uk/Details.cfm ... category=3].

Unfortunately, the best way to learn these sort of things is by experiencing yourself, and we have all made mistakes. Don't beat yourself down over it.

--
Mats

thanks.

I put the caves on the very bottom, moved all the sand, so only bare tank against the bottoms of the slate caves. I want to remove all the rocks but I can't do that. I will try and silcone them to a piece of slate and then put them back in. But I have alot of the rocks the smaller ones around plants?

it's like baby proofing a home!

there's a far simpeler solution: clear a bit of the floorspace from sand.
put a small brick in it, or any other rock with a flat top. any rock just as thick as the layer of sand will be perfect
a bit of flagstone is also good.


make sure that the topspace is bigger than the footprint of the cave, so it cannot fall off.
put the cave on top of it, and then level the sand again

now your cave is laying on something sturdy, it cannot be dug under and you don't need complicated constructions.

thanks Sid, and thanks Mats for that cool link to the "egg crate" , I always wondered what you all meant when you talked about that item in the forums.