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Gang,

I don’t know what I am doing wrong, but I seem to be incapable of keeping plain
old simple Neon Tetras.

Upfront, water conditions are fine, maybe it is of interest that my nitrates are 0,
ph is somewhere around 6.8, and kh is 0, too. It’s a 29G well planted tank at 80F
with 40W of light.

So, now to my tale:

By now maybe 10 weeks ago I bought 6 Neons and within 2 days I had Ich in tank.
I treated it for 2 weeks with Quick Cure (bi-daily water changes) and used a quarter
dosage (1/2 for Tetras and 1/2 again for plants). I had no losses after 2 weeks of
treatment. About 3 weeks later I lost 1 Neon per week, sometimes showing no signs
of illness, sometimes looking like they might have NTD (pale color, swollen belly,
or both). All but one were dead 2 weeks ago.
See also Tank Population is Dying

The last survivor was doing just fine and
last weekend I bought him 6 new buddies. I specially went to a different LFS because
my normal one had tanks with Ich. After one day, I saw one white spot on the head of a
Neon, the next day it was gone. Today, I found a dead one in the morning and had
to put another one to sleep tonight. The morning one looked normal, the late one was
a little pale in some areas of the red. He was breathing rapidly and did not swim with
the school anymore. I don’t want to treat the tank on a faint potential of a weird illness
because I don’t want to endanger my first (and only) baby platys (6 weeks old).

Any ideas

Thanks,

Ingo


Last edited by LITTLE_FISH at 23-Jun-2005 18:28

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

well thats a stange tale indeed but it sounds your doing every thing you can so it could be just plain bad luck cause you've got good water paramiters including 0ppm o nitrate wich is impressive and the tank is in no way too small for them so realy your tank sould be just fine for neons so maybe assuming you've got plants that they may have been carrying parasites or one of the fish may have been a "healthy carier" but i'm not certain though.
hope this helps a tini bit!
Declan

hmm neons are normaly pretty easy

Little_Fish

Neons can be touchey at any time, even though you bought them from a different LFS they could have still come from the one importer and be all from the one batch.

My importer only buys small ones then grows them on and never a problem providing you have the correct conditions.

Have you been in contact with the LFS to tell them your problems with the Neons.

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

Thanks for the input,

Keith, the Neons at the LFS with the Ich problem did not have Ich, they looked pretty
good. On top of it, I don’t think that Ich is problem (just one fish who had one spot
for one day).

I am a little shy when it comes to going back to the LFS and complaining about a fish
issue like this one. When I was pretty new to fish (well, that was actually only 3 months ago)
I had a dwarf gouramy die on me on the second day. He seemed to me as having developed
mouth fungus. So I went back to the store (they even recommended this fish for my tank) and
was told to show them my water for testing and if the results would be negative I would get
a replacement. Well, I tested my water twice right before I brought it to them with all zeroes .
And they told me there was a very small almost undetectable level of nitrite ]:| .Instead of
getting a new fish I was told not to add any more at this time. I left the store utterly confused
and disillusioned about the willingness of the LFS to actually help me. I haven’t recovered from
this treatment yet and either would be confused again or blow (and the guy a this LFS hasn’t
done anything wrong {yet}).

Ingo


Last edited by LITTLE_FISH at 24-Jun-2005 04:19

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hey Little_Fish - where are you? In the world, that is.

When I was living in Seattle a few years ago and attempted to get neons I had a horrible time. I would buy 10, they would seem fine, no signs of illness, water conditions great, then they would start dropping off one by one over a few months. I finally just gave up, I never had problems with any other type of fish.

I have a feeling since they're so popular a lot of them are inbred, and you may just be getting sickly stock from whatever breeder your LFS buys from.

Stariel,

I’m right here

No, I am in NJ so way on the other side of the country. But you might be right about the sickly stock (or not, who knows).

Such things drive me insane. I can handle the mistakes I make and obvious mistakes from any LFS as well, but the “great unknown” factors really get to me. ]:|

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo, make sure they test the water in front of you. I have heard that some LFS will take the water in another room and add some dirty water so that they dont have to replace the fish. Not sure if it is true, but its worth being aware of.

Last edited by katieb at 24-Jun-2005 15:00

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Well I'm in Boston now - no idea about the neons here.

Anyway, if you're sure the water conditions were good and the fish weren't visibly sick I'd chalk it up to bad luck or bad breeding.

Edited to add: What kind of puffer is that in your avatar, and is it yours?

Last edited by stariel at 24-Jun-2005 16:27

Have you thought of having your water tested by the Agricultural Extension service (check your local county court house) or under city government, in your phone book. I think you might have more going on than just the usual nitrate, ammonia, PH situations. They can test for things like benzine, lead, etc.
A few months ago, our water company flushed out the lines, and I lost some of my fish. Don't trust the water company to tell you the truth, have it tested by the county. I don't believe there is a charge for this service.
I used to have neons, but my experience was that they can live for months without incident, then suddenly start to die off for no apparent reason. Some had the white spots you described, but others showed no signs of illness. They have become so inbred, that they have become very susceptable to all matter of diseases that can be spread to your other fish.
I hope you can find the cause of your problem. Good luck.

To all the nice ladies that posted after my last post – Thank you so much for your input (guys, I would say the same to you)

stariel – well, no it’s not my puffer. I stole the image of the web (pssst, don’t tell anyone) and modified it a little. I am rather sure the owner wouldn’t mind too much. The fish is a Figure Eight Puffer Fish. I would have to create a separate tank to hold them (you tell my wife that I REALLY should). He is soooooo cute .

katieb – they tested in front of me, but you know that just touching the glass top with your fingers will change the outcome of the nitrite values .

Two Tanks – I guess I should follow your advice and have the water tested by the county, but as you mentioned, there is a fee on it that might easily exceed the cost of all my fish. In addition, I wouldn’t even know how to approach this and where to send it to. I guess I am not angry enough, but if this continues I might get there rather quickly ]:| .

Well, over the last 24 hours I haven’t lost another one and I will keep on monitoring how they are doing. I will keep you all posted.

Thanks so much,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Well it's an adorable fish anyway!

My ex-BF back in Seattle has his/our puffer - a porcupine in an 80 gallon saltwater tank. He's such a cutie! I would love to have a puffer tank again.