Cardinal Sushi?

[shrimp paste]

Slowly increasing the population of my display tank with the introduction of a few tank mates over the weekend.

10 Cardinals were aclimatizing in their bag while four discus got very excited and started a window shopping frenzy. Mine.....mine....mine....mine.

Ok, lets give the discus a big feed before realasing them to the wolves, maybe then their swollen bellies will slow them down a bit and allow the cardinals to find refuge before the next tummy grumble.

Nope! As soon as they were out it was on. Circuits around the potted plants, ambushes in the corner of the tank and speedy sprints down the length of the tank with a lunge for tail fins.... oh no, this could be an expensive feed. The discus seemed to even be able to hunt in tandem, one would herd them around the pot while another waited patietly for the school of yummies to appear and then suprise!!!!

Blood worms are cheaper so i quickly through a heap in the tank to subdue the discus. This worked but for how long? Discus will eat until there tummies explode i think (have not proven this theory but i thought i may over the weekend)

I then recieved a call from my folks who needed some assistance with a new born crea (that's baby for Alpaca), so had to leave the mayhem and hope for the best.

I was really expecting to see many tailess cardinals on my return and a few missing or skeletel remains floating around and big smiles on my Discus :D

To my suprise it seemed the war was over and the under dogs had survived, in tact. The cardinals were schooling around happily and the discus seemed to have lost interest in cardinal sushi - for the moment.

They still assert their normal dominance while swimming but seem to have lost interest in the hunting game.

p.s. Who said cardinals were good tank mates for Discus? The discus seem to think so. lol

[Ben]

remember.......wolves hunt in the dark!
lol

[Merrilyn]

What size were the discus. I think you may find that the cardinals will disappear one at a time, usually overnight :x

[shrimp paste]

Hi Merrilyn,

Did you mean what size were the cardinals? Yes they were on the small size, prob about 2.5cm (bite size) My 2 larger discus are only about 10-12cm head to tail and a couple of 8cms.

The cardinals do have areas of cover to hide in.

Did not have a chance to do a head count this morning, eagerly awaiting for this arvo.

[pitchblack]

dont turn your back on those discus munch munch cardinal tetra's for lunch

[shrimp paste]

last count and they are all still in tact and accounted for. :lol: That's 2 scary evenings already. Not sure how long it will last.

It reminded me of my early days of fish keeping. 4 nicely grown angels, then my bro comes around with a couple of yabbies. Cool we both think. :? Then there was three. At first I didn't realise it was the yabbies. Then one night i get home, straight to the tank of course, and there is a yabbie attached to an angel in an until the end of life tug of war. It's hanging on desperatley while the angel is in a frenzy darting all around the tank. It makes me laugh to this day (sorry angel lovers).

Hence my nic, Shrimp paste. :lol: :lol:

[Merrilyn]

Love your story Shrimp Paste. Shared it with some of the non fishy people at work, and even they thought it was hilarious.

We all hope your cardinals manage to survive, but do keep us posted.

[shrimp paste]

Thanks Merrikyn,

the count down has begun.

Last night within 5 secs of lights off they had one.

LOL

[DiscusMad]

my girlfrend wanted some neons and I told her they they would get eaten but Nooooo.....

didn't listen to me and bought 20 of the little buers and guess what happened????


lost about half in one night lol

[goldenpigeon]

haha nice stories. i had 2 of those flying foxes (algae eaters) in my community tank with discus and tetras ect. time came where i wanted to add a couple of smaller fish just to sort of fill the gaps. so i bought 6 rummy-noses which costed me about $13 (on special) and they where dissapearing about 2 in the morning and 2 at night ect. i cnew the discus were not behind it because they are more interested in them-selves. i couldnt think of what it might be, i thought it may have been bad luck or something so about a week later i got some more and suffered the same consiquences. soon the other small number of tetras i had in the tank was also decreasing. the discus wernt behind it because you can tell when they have done something wrong (their bellies are full).

i started to notice a very sudden growth rate in the flying foxed and the biggest one was definetly over weight.

today these two live in the personal tank of goarge and sandy (owners of g n s aquarium). they have been employed by goarge to eat the black hair algae in his discus display. and they do an excellent job at it! i see the flying foxes from time to time and have a laugh because 1 of them is still over weight.

if i still owned these to fish i would rent them out to those in need of destroying the black hair algae.

[DiscusMad]

I had 2 flying foxes but they got bigger so i had to get rid of them cause they were harassing the discus