# How long does it take a dead fish to completely break down to be unfindable?



## Absolut Talent (Feb 5, 2014)

Just curious. I am missing 1 harlequin rasbora, and now I cant seem to find my Oto. 

My nitrates did spike a bit last week, i thought maybe it was related to my fertilizers and thought nothing of it. But For the last week I cannot find rasbora #10, and oto #1. 

There is the possibility the rasbora jumped from my tank (unlikely from how they act in the tank, even during feeding), but the oto I have never seen him hit the upper levels. 

And I live in a small apartment, no fish have been on my floor. My kids wouldve been the first to find it. 
Today I ran my hand through all my plants, moved driftwood. Scared the crap outta my shrimp, but no oto cat to be found. 

The only other possibility is that both of those fish died. But i didnt see any floaters, nothing stuck to my filter intake. And I dont see anything around the ground. Between my cherry's and amanos, how long does it take for a fish to completely breakdown to be unfindable?


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## Grah the great (Jul 3, 2013)

Not sure about it 'breaking down', but it could very well have been eaten, and the remaining bones could have slipped into some sort of small crevice and become irretrievable.


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## devilduck (May 9, 2012)

Do you have any snails? They make short work of a dead fish. My ramshorns will completely engulf the remains and reduce them to bone in a matter of hours. One of the ways I know something has passed is if all the snails normally in the tank can't be found.


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## Virto (Dec 6, 2012)

In my experience, small fish tend to sink, especially cats that don't have a swim bladder to hold position in the water column (ottos, plecos, corydoras). I have a tendency to leave small fish that die naturally in the tank to be scavenged, although that's primarily because I usually have no chance to spot them before they're chewed away.

Larger fish, like rainbows, tend to float or get stuck. I've had them wedge themselves into filters, jump up behind inlet pipes for hang on backs, or get spooked and ram glass.

In my tanks, BN plecos are the instant cleanup crew. My older female is a scavenging queen and will strip a tetra or bronze cory in an hour. With tetras, I usually don't know one is missing until I count, but armored cats will leave behind scale plates.

Since you have shrimp, I'd say small fish like ottos or rasboras could be cleaned up pretty quickly - easily within a day.


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## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

If it's been a week and they died that long ago you will never find any remains. The shrimp and the other rasboras will have long finished with them.


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## Kitsune_Gem (Apr 10, 2012)

I've seen my old female guppies get stripped to the bone in 24 hours when in a tank full of ghost shrimp.


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## Betta132 (Nov 29, 2012)

Fish bones fall apart into a heap of tiny tiny bits. I put a dead oto in a 10g with nothing but some pond snails, and a week later it's mostly a skeleton. 9 days later, nothing but a heap of bits of bone, only from the snails.


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## jeepguy (Jul 24, 2013)

Without the help of scavengers(not counting bacteria) I have watched a Platy fry(about .5") decompose in my sump chamber in 2 days to nothing if that answers your question. Larger the fish, larger the amount of matter to decompose.


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## Absolut Talent (Feb 5, 2014)

well i found my oto
I took apart my aqueon water changer and found him in the connection where the tube meets the switch 
All dried up 

I have the screen on the little attachment, but I usually take the whole thing off after vaccuuming the substrate and use straight tubing near the surface to get just water out. He mustve swam in when I turned away for a second when the kids were asking me a question. 

He did have a lot of personality too for a small fish.


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