Counting . . . .

[angelminx]

You don't know how hard it is doing a head-count of Black Neon Tetras and SAEs--despite how different they are--when they are all "zipping" around the tank !   The SAEs are longer, and the Neons have the white stripe above the black one and are "rounder", but they both have the black stripe that extends thru the whole body, and tho their sizes are different in a few individuals, they are close enough in size that it's hard to keep track.  I should have 11 Neons and (now) 4 SAEs.  I lost one SAE the other day; I found it floating upside down at the surface, and thought at 1st that it was "Big Mama", because that's who it looked like at 1st glance, but as I removed the body, I saw "her" zip by.  This turned out to be the 2nd largest of the group;the only thing that looked wrong, was that the body was "swollen" (Big Mama is the one that's always had the "swollen", aka FAT body), instead of as slender as normal (all of the others had been slender).  Anyway, I keep coming up short in my counts....but then I get a different count each time   (besides in general, the plants at the front don't help--they make it hard to keep count of my 11 Dwarf Neon Rainbows, as well).

Wonder how people with large schools of tetras keep tabs (I've heard of people with 50 or more of one individual species)?

[Carl]

With large groups/schools of fish, I never counted until I had to such as end of the year inventory. Then we would catch all the fish, weigh a sample number such as 10 then weight the whole group to come up with a reasonably accurate count

Carl

[angelminx]

Never thought of that before .   I usually only do an occasional count, such as when I find someone dead , or someone seems to be missing.   Or of course, for a while, when they are new acquisitions .