Hello eveyrone,
Last night a few hours past lights out i noticed my clown wasn't swimming around where he usually does so i inspected the tank and couldn't find him anywhere, after checking the input and return pipes i discovered he was pulled into the powerhead's intake and was trapped. I un-plugged it imideietly but i was too late. The wierd thing about this powerhead is that it has about a 3'inch long intake, then a grate / screen, then the impeller. The clown wasnt diced or cut or anything but the power of the suction bent him in half, and as i suspected broke his spine, so i had to euthanize him. With only having a few fish, i was a bit attached -so this is a hard blow.
I was wondering if it is common (common enough) for smaller fish to get pulled into powerheads. He was about 3 inches long, he was in a 10 gallon tank with a cleaner shrimp and a small damsel. The powerhead was only rated at 220 gph, and he was a very active and healthy fish, always swimming around and flying about the tank. Good healthy colors, and ate like a beast. oddly enough even when "sleeping'' he would still scoot around the tank unlike the other fish who hunkered down in the live rock.
Any information that could shed some light on the situation would be grand.
