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I've had my tank setup for 5 weeks now - I started it with a couple of male fantail guppies and the media from a friends well established tank. The guppies are fine, the corys I added a week later are fine, but the wife wants neons. So 2 weeks ago I go and get 6 of them. One doesn't make it to my house alive, but the others did fine for a few days. Went back, got my replacement fish and one more (incase of death on the road again) and the whole group of 7 was happy. Then a few days later, 2 died with no obvious cause. Healthy and swimming when I come home from work, stuck to the intake of the filter an hour later. Since then, one died each day in the same manner - fine one minute, unable to swim the next, dead right after - until I was down to 3 from my origial batch. Waited 4 days, no more deaths, went to a *different* LFS, got 4 more. No dead fish for a few days, but one from my original batch bought it, and today *3* of the newest group died.

So for now I'm leaving it with the 3 survivors - 2 from the original batch and one from the last. Funny thing is they seem happier in the small group of 3 as opposed to the large group of 5-7 - more active, don't just hover over the bottom, more "aggressive" and quick on the food.

Weird, huh?

mmm, yes very weird.

It could be a number of things.
maybe you're just getting bad batches from the lfs. neons are e to health problems due to inbreeding.

Just a couple of questions, what size is the tank? and what method do you do when introducing the neons to your tank?

If neons aren't working, you should try Cardinals. Cardinals are very similar to neons (better IMO), and they don't have the health problems neons are known to have.
People say that cardinals are hard to keep and require absolute top water quality, but this isn't the case. The only hard thing about cardinals is introducing them, but once they're introduced they're normally fine.

I have cardinals in my 25g with a PH of around 7.5 and I don't always remember to do my weekly water changes. but they're still healthy.

What are the water parameters?.
How do you introduce them?. Do you let them float for some minutes & add water slowly?.
Have you lost any other fish, apart the Neons?.



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No other fish deaths. I add them by floating the bag in my tank for 20 minutes or so, then open it and add some of my tank water, then about 10 minutes later drain almost all the water from the bag then add the fish to the tank.

Water temp is 80 F, no bad Ns, 20 on the good N. - cant remember if it is nitrites or nitrates that are good.

Its funny, 'cause I'd expect unexplained deaths in the first 24-48 hrs... not a week after adding.

id10t,

First of all, welcome to FP and I have to say you selected a nice member name I don’t mean that in an insulting way, I just think it’s very clever.

Now, back to your topic:

Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to help you but I can offer you to share your grieve. I am trying to “host” Neons for 3 months now and I am facing issues with them all the time. 2 refills (re-stockings after deaths) introduced Ich to the tank, the last one batch added some odd illness that might be mouth-fungus (link is [link=Here]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/The%20Hospital/61605.html?200507111358" style="COLOR: #ff6633[/link] ) and I am treating the whole tank for that stuff.

I am almost at a point where I say “enough is enough, even if they die; I am not going to re-stock just to have them in a school again”.

I probably lost 10 Neons over the last 3 months just to maintain a nice school of 8.

Hopefully this helps you; it is not only you that can’t deal with this fish.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

From my experience keeping tetras long term here are some tips, regardless of the tetra you are buying.

1. When acclimating to your tank at least 90 minutes should be used by slowing putting some amounts of your tank water in the bag.

2. Neons, cardinals, and some other tetras should not be put in a tank that isn't at least 6 months old.

3. Weekly water changes are very important (20%)

4. Any flunctation in temp, ph, etc. will kill your fish. The tank has to be about the same temp nite and day.

You don't have to do these things, but it will minimize your loses.

Good luck!



My Scapes

Neons can give you an awful lot of trouble -- not because they're innately a very delicate fish, but because they have been inbred by the big fish farms to the point that they're now very vulnerable to infection.

Those in the stores also now carry, with alarming frequency, Neon Tetra Disease, which is the most diabolical fish disease I have ever encountered -- it goes after a lot of fish besides Neons, it's incurable, and it is extremely difficult to eliminte from your tank even if you euthanize every infected fish the moment you see the symptoms(whitish areas of faded color, and/or staggering swimming).

Let me suggest that you try Cardinal Tetras instead. The books often describe them as delicate; but in my experience they are now significantly LESS delicate than store-bought Neons. Since they're wild-caught, they are far less likely to carry NT Disease (which seems to have spread epidemically in the fish farms' huge pools of bred Neons) -- and they also seem actually somewhat more resistant to the disease. While they're somewhat more expensive than Neons, the difference is not great -- and their coloration is even more beautiful. They're certainly not among the toughest of fish -- they do require fairly clean water -- but they have never given me much trouble.

If you do insist on Neons, you might consider lowering their water temperature a bit -- they seem to prefer water a bit cooler than most tropicals, about 72 deg F (22 deg C).

Yeah, the dreadful Neon Tetra Disease

At the onset of my first Neon death series, I was convinced that they must have this disease as their symptoms did not fit into any of the classic categories. Some got fat and died, some were skinny and died, some lost buoyancy before they died, and others were just dead without any warning. And then I lost one Zebra Danio and shortly after that I had to euthanize my beloved 2 female Platys. And during the whole ordeal, my just born Platy fry did not show any problem at all (all 9 are still alive and kicking).

While I cried for help here on FP, I usually heard that people have not seen NTD ever before. In this thread I read that it occurs with alarming frequency.

It all adds to the mystery of Neon deaths that seem to happen way too often. Without trying to place the blame of my dead fishies on somebody else, one thing that I hear almost all the time is that they are way too inbred. Maybe that is the sole reason for their immune system weakness and they die of all kinds of different reasons because out tanks are just not “the perfect” world for them.

Ingo

Last edited by Little_Fish at 13-Jul-2005 10:22

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Cardinals are definitely the better way to go if you acclimate slowly. They are more colorful and bigger.

Unfortunately far too many people put neons and cardinals in newly established tanks.

As I mentioned if you acclimated slowly over 90 minutes, put in established tanks (6 months +) and change water weekly you shouldn't have much problems.

My Scapes

i am new to tetras, and i haven'thad any problems. my guess is that don't worry, it could be that they weren't healthy. i know that they are x-bred, so often, that it makes them weak, that can have something to do with it. i would also guess that since they are small fish, they might be sensitive to water conditions.

So your Platy fry survived when the adults died, from whatever the disease actually was in your case? That's interesting. It reminds me of polio, which is tremendously more dangerous and destructive if it's caught by children for the first time AFTER they have passed through infancy -- a great many babies caught it with absolutely no lasting effects, but it was destructive when children caught it later, because of its interaction with some quirk of the developing human immune system.

Lost another one last night... Not gonna buy any more. Got 2 left...

As I say, try Cardinals. They do require some attention to water cleanness, but they are not wildly delicate, and they're even prettier than Neons.

Go with the cardinals. A bit more expensive but less problems. Ive had them for months and have had no problems. They havent gotten sick at all.