How Often Do You Do A Head Count?

[OldMan47]

I know the count on several tanks but tanks like my 45 gallon endler tank just get an eyeball estimate that tells me it is about the same as yesterday, somewhere around 60 to 80 adults and older juveniles with uncountable fry. The pair of kiliies that have their own tank, the 4 Ameca splendens in their own tank, the 6 Xiphophorus helleri, the 5 Goodea gracilis in their own tank are all ones I can count though.

 

[kribensis12]

I don't purposefully. I will know if a fish is missing. I guess sub conciously I do, as I always know is one died. My lab fry tank is hard to tell even if I tried to tell. I don't think I've lost any of them. They are reallly robust.

 

[thefubar]

Its normally as a result of not seeing a particular fish for a couple of days. Then a little hunt resolves in him being found tucked away somewhere new. I only have about 20 fish plus shrimps so not impossible to do a quick head count. The Otos make it harder!

 

[Bluefintuna]

I also headcount daily at feeding time.

 

[VickiandKev]

I don't count all my fish very often. I do know the more vulnerable fish that I need to look out for (new or young fish) and always count my baby clown loaches and always look out for Squeak, my yoyo loach that came to me severely emaciated but he's all better now.
I also count new fish quite often where I can, I recently got 3 calico BNs and keep an eye out for these.

I have massive piles of bogwood in my tank though and BNs can be incredibly elusive unless you're going to sit up and sit very still to wait for everyone to come out to eat. It doesn't help that I scatter feed to ensure the baby plecs all get food, so they don't all come to the same place to eat.

Even when I took my whole tank apart and took everything out a few weeks ago, I was short of a baby clown loach and my beloved longfin BN .... all I had was substrate and fish in the tank ... but they reappeared a day after I'd put everything back in - God knows where they were hiding

I do watch the behaviour of the fish though, as closely as possible, they do usually let you know if something is amiss.

 

[ZoddyZod]

I have 10 danios and 10 neons, I do a count pretty much everyday just to be sure one hasn't lost the will to live and has started fouling the water.

If I had larger numbers (20+) I dont think I'd even try.

 

[natalie265]

Not often enough.

My tank is heavily planted and the fish are difficult to count. I was surprised when i had to break my tank down to move it recently, to find that two of my neon tetras were missing and presumed dead! There was a thread recently about how neon tetras could be rather sensitive and i bragged that i'd had mine for over a year without loosing any! Ooops!

 

[iffles]

i do a count every day about 6-7 times - especially my apple snails, shrimps (cos there always hiding) and platy fry. also my harlequins and lone glowlight (his 4 companions died when my heater decided it wanted to roast them , but he survived somehow

 

[england]

i dont count my fish but have the instinct to notice if somethings wrong, so guess thats still counting, but i just glace and notice hmm wheres pleco oh in his usual place,

 

[aly_starh]

I do a head count twice a day. LOL, and thats both tanks.

 

[Mr Bliss]

I don't know how many emperor tetras I have, so I just try to make sure there aren't any dead fish in the tank. They keep breeding, I keep taking some to the LFS to keep the population in check (didn't take long for my initial shoal of 11 tetras to multiply to 50+), and there are just too many and the tank is too heavily planted to actually count the fish.