Missing Neon tetras???

[furryeggs]

I've been slowly adding some Neon tetras to my aquarium over the last 3 weeks but I seem to be missing a couple. There were 12 on Sunday now there are 8. There is no sign of them floating on the top or anywhere else under wood or in plants. I think that possibly my Tiger barbs might be the culprit, although I'm not 100% sure about that though as I also have 14 Ember tetras which are smaller that are all present and accounted for?

Any ideas? There is no possibility that they have been sucked through the filter as its all external and any holes or slits in the pipe work are way to small for them to get through.

My stock is (was)

6 Tigers barbs
6 Black widow tetras
14 Ember tetras
12 Neon tetras
3 Pygmy corey

Tank is roughly 270 litres

 

[Fishy Smell]

Probably the tiger barbs, but it could be a bad batch of neons which have just died and been chobbled up. Did you have the embers before the tigers? Often adding small fish to an established tank they will be seen as food by little nightmare fish like tiger barbs. If you added the tigers after the small fish it may not happen.

 

[furryeggs]

I've had the Embers for a while now, Tigers about 2 months ago and Neons 2-3 weeks ago

 

[Fishy Smell]

Are any of the neons showing signs of illness, patches of white on them, hanging out near the top of the tank quite still or not swimming normally? If so, they might be dieing off. I've actually found neons harder to keep than Cardinals, could be that i added the cardinals to a more established tank, or that i just had better stock, but there you go. That said, i wouldn't risk Cardinals with tigers. Tiger barbs are great shoalers for semi agressive medium sized cichlids, but i wouldn't put them with small fish and certainly not long finned fish. They should be in 6's or better still 8's or more. Personally, i would say if you want to keep small fish i would trade them. If you insist on having a barb in there, go with Cherry barbs.

 

[furryeggs]

No signs of illness and they are feeding normally