Neon Tetra; Snack time for Angels

Since we have learned to keep an aquarium tank and tropical fishes at home, we have long awaited for a new deliveries of neon tetras in our local pet shops. It's been a while since we had this fish species in our tank. They do look gorgeous in my tank with the blue and red streaks plus they do group themselves making them more attractive inside the tank. I have been maintaining a planted aquarium, a community aquarium to be specific and having these neon tetras in my tank was a great addition that compliments the green back-draft. Mom just brought in the first 10 pieces of neon's and after acclimating the new fish, they were put in the tank to meet their new tank-mates that includes a few pieces of sword tails, platties, tiger barbs, zebra danio, mollies and three half full grown varieties of angel fishes.

The neons enjoyed the lush green aquarium, darting trough the tank one way or the other, trying to adapt with their new found home in my tank. Mom was enjoying the scene and started to put the neons accounted for. Then here's the bad news, " How come there's only seven of them?" she asked, so I hurried to count them too and was puzzled that we do only have seven of them, so mom hurried in the garbage bin hoping to see the missing three neons in the plastic bag where those tetra was placed from the shop, yet nothing was left in the plastic bag, so I open the the tank and took a peek inside for an even thorough look, well there were only seven of them left from ten pieces purchased from the store. We tried to scour the lush vegetation hoping that the missing three neons were just hiding behind the boggy. No luck at all. So mom was enraged thinking that she was falsely given the wrong number of neons, so she hurried back to the pet shop and confronted the owner. Thirty minutes later, mom was back. She was told that they placed 6 pieces of neon in one bag and another four neons on the other. The store owner said " I can't be mistaken because I was the one who counted them and placed them in the plastic bag". So as my mom's apology, she took home another ten pieces of these neon tetra. Then after acclimating the fish, they were brought in the tank. Mom took the front seat watching the aquarium, and dad care to join her on enjoying the scene. The neons was enjoying their home, when my dad noticed one of the angel's fish was bloated on his belly. After a while, the three angel fish cornered the neon and started snatching one with their mouth. Arghh! I can even see the neons tail peeking out of my black ghost angel's mouth, wiggling a bit. Disaster indeed. I never thought of these angel fish could devour those flashy neons.

Looks can be deceiving and names can be deceiving. Angel fish are not widely known as a predator. I was amazed of how these gentle species can snatch smaller fish whole in their mouth. I was keeping these fish for 2 years now, and I never saw them devouring those small zebra danio in my tank. I never lost a danio in that tank too. So I was wondering what triggered them to pick on my new neon tetra as snacks. But I did learned something from these fish, NEON TETRA is a good snack for ANGEL FISH.

So the ending, I need to fill up one of my smaller tank and evicted my angel fish from my community tank to a tank of their own. Now I need to set up that new tank with a new substrate and some new aquatic plants. I still love those angel fish after murdering and consuming few of my neon tetras. Lesson learnt the hard way.