Reply With Quote
Most likely those are just the weak or sick ones, and the stress of the transfer finally did them in... not much you can do but prepare to remove them soon.
Hi all,
Its been quite sometime since i last visited this forum. Really glad to be back!
So the thing is, i bought 12 neon tetras and 2 small yellow puffers (at most 1cm long) yesterday for my 3ftx1ftx1ft planted tank. Everything seemed fine after i released them after a few hours of acclimatising.
But when i got home today, i saw 2 of them lying vertically at the bottom of the tank (1 with head up, 1 with tail up). I thought they were dead and its only after i looked closely that i saw that they were still breathing, although kinda heavily and quickly, almost like they were panting.
The other 10 neon tetras seems perfectly fine though. Anyone got any idea what could be the cause?
Most likely those are just the weak or sick ones, and the stress of the transfer finally did them in... not much you can do but prepare to remove them soon.
Think they are quite sick and CMI to long life.
probably not used to the water parameters of your tank (eg pH shock etc). there's nth to do about it. you should only worry if more start to die in the coming days (touch wood).
Thank you all for the reply. i noticed one more behaving weirdly (tail up swimming), will monitor closely for any more anomalies.
There is a disease peculiar to neon for which there is no known cure. You should remove any off-colour fish to prevent the spread.
The hardiness of neon depends on their 'genes' or their stock. It is therefore wiser to buy from fellow-aquarists rather than LFS because they have been tank-seasoned. I got 12 neon that way and they adapted immediately on release by feeding.
I prefer observing life in my humble fish tank to watching TV that does nothing for the mind.
Agree with Neptune regarding Neon Tetra Disease (Pleistophora hyphessobryconis). I bought a bag of 50 neons for my planted tank just over a year ago and even from the first day I could see off-colour ones, some with deformed spine others with patchy colour loss. In the next few weeks usually one or two would start showing signs. I learned that the best thing to do is to net them out. Apparently the parasite which causes NTD spreads mainly when infected fish die and rot in the tank. Otherwise when the fish are still alive it's quite deeply embedded in the muscles and organs unlike other parasites like Ich.
Also I read somewhere that almost all captive breeding neon tetra facilities have this parasite in their tanks. After removing sick fish/having some die, I'm down to 7 neons after a year and they've grown big and fat. I'm resigned to the fact that neons I buy are going to be like this as long as there isn't a way to source for NTD-free stock.
Looks like its a good idea to setup a separate bare bottom quarantine tank for new neon tetras, then watch them closely for 2-3 weeks and quickly remove any odd or weak looking ones once spotted. Maybe that would help ensure the disease doesn't spread as quickly to the healthy ones.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks