Neon tetra freaks out when I off the lights.

[Neonlight]

Hey guys. I have 20 neon tetras in a fully cycled tank. Every time I off my T5 lights, they kinda freak out and bang thier heads on the wall or jump out of water. Does anyone know whats causing this or have any idea how to solve it? Will it injury the fish? Also, a few of the tetra also have exposed gills? Is that something serious? They seem to be doing fine. What do you guys feed your tetras? What brand? Sry for so many questions in one thread, im not very experienced at keeping neons.

[Adrain]

I used to keep them and I experienced the same thing. I guess it's just their nature. I wonder if those adjustable switch sold at ikea to dim the lights slowly till you off would help your situation though. It's those kind of switch where you turn clockwise to max bright and anti clockwise to dim and off. I'm not sure if that works for aquarium lights.


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[Urban Aquaria]

This effect of sudden lights on/off on fishes is quite common... they get scared and disorientated easily and take more time to adapt.

Rather then go from pitch dark to bright lights in an instant, perhaps allow abit of diffused light from a window or corridor to provide some ambient light around the tank (not too much though), then when the aquarium lights switch on or off, the light change effect would be more gradual.

More hiding spaces in the form of dense vegetation helps too, once the fishes get used to the tank layout and know where to hide, they will dash directly into the hiding places if scared (instead of jumping and bumping around in confusion), and then emerge when they feel safe.

Not sure if add-on dimmers work on standard aquarium lights though, usually they only work with lights that are designed/labelled to be dimmable. I guess you can try and see if it can work.

Btw, the fishes you have with exposed gills, if the gills are noticeably red, then it might be a sign of ammonia poisioning, whereby excessive ammonia levels in the water could be causing gill burn. Better check your water parameters and perhaps step up the water change frequency to reduce toxic levels building up.

Food-wise i feed my tetras various pellet food like Hikari micro pellets, micro wafers, NewLife Spectrum Thera+A small fish formula... and they also take bites out of sinking wafers and algae wafers and even shrimp pellets too.

[Neonlight]

Normally, I leave my room lights on before I off the aquarium light, but they still get frightened. I have no choice now but to go through the hideous process of lifting the lamp and moving it further away.

I've just changed 30% water and added bacteria life. Hope that they will heal. I also read up that the exposed gills could be because of gene?
I only have some shrubs in for carpet and have not yet added any tall vegetation, trying to go for a mountain look with the big rocks. They seem very shy and scared of the slightest movement.
Right now, im using aquadene pellets. Seem to be doing just fine for them. Also how you do manage the food that falls to the bottom?

[Urban Aquaria]

Normally, I leave my room lights on before I off the aquarium light, but they still get frightened. I have no choice now but to go through the hideous process of lifting the lamp and moving it further away.

I've just changed 30% water and added bacteria life. Hope that they will heal. I also read up that the exposed gills could be because of gene?
I only have some shrubs in for carpet and have not yet added any tall vegetation, trying to go for a mountain look with the big rocks. They seem very shy and scared of the slightest movement.
Right now, im using aquadene pellets. Seem to be doing just fine for them. Also how you do manage the food that falls to the bottom?

Yeah, i guess for small fishes like tetras their habitats are relatively dim with lots of places to hide, so tank layouts with mostly short plants and bright lights tends to spook them easily.

Not sure about the exposed gill covers being due to genes, but if they were like that when you got the fishes, then i guess there isn't much you can do for those ones, just have to keep the water clean and hopefully they don't encounter anymore issues.

When i feed my fishes, i usually only feed a few pellets at a time so that the fishes eat most of them before they start falling from the water surface. The majority of the pellets i use float for a while and sink slowly, so they are usually all eaten up on the way down. I have feeding dishes in all my tanks and i sprinkle the food in the area above the dishes, so any which drop will still land in the dish, not on the substrate.

Any food that drops into the dish are promptly grabbed and eaten by the hungry cherry shrimps waiting there anyways, so it all gets snapped up very quickly.