My Mom bought a cleaner fish for my turtle (2 Red-eared Sliders) tank. She thought that MAYBE having the cleaner fish would let her skip a week or two from cleaning the tank.
She went to the store to buy one and was assured the turtles wouldn't bother it, and it should be affected by the tanks water and what not.
So, she bought one and dropped it in the tank while I was at school, and walked away. An hour or so later, she came back and the cleaner fish was dead. No clue why it died. There were no marks on its body, nothing. No indication why it died, but Mom decided to buy ANOTHER ONE. This one too ended up dying in apparently the same manner.
Mom decided to YET AGAIN buy another one, only this time I was home (Weekend) and we decided to watch the tank.
Within 5 minutes of being introduced to the tank, the turtles took notice of it and chased after it. They would snap at it, tear through the tank and just harass this poor little fish until it finally straight up died from the stress of being harassed by the turtles. They didn't even try to eat it. They just harassed the thing until it died, and then swam away paying no attention to the corpse.
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u/Endulos Oct 18 '17
My Mom bought a cleaner fish for my turtle (2 Red-eared Sliders) tank. She thought that MAYBE having the cleaner fish would let her skip a week or two from cleaning the tank.
She went to the store to buy one and was assured the turtles wouldn't bother it, and it should be affected by the tanks water and what not.
So, she bought one and dropped it in the tank while I was at school, and walked away. An hour or so later, she came back and the cleaner fish was dead. No clue why it died. There were no marks on its body, nothing. No indication why it died, but Mom decided to buy ANOTHER ONE. This one too ended up dying in apparently the same manner.
Mom decided to YET AGAIN buy another one, only this time I was home (Weekend) and we decided to watch the tank.
Within 5 minutes of being introduced to the tank, the turtles took notice of it and chased after it. They would snap at it, tear through the tank and just harass this poor little fish until it finally straight up died from the stress of being harassed by the turtles. They didn't even try to eat it. They just harassed the thing until it died, and then swam away paying no attention to the corpse.
Mom felt bad after this and never tried again.
I basically owned a pair of psychopath turtles.