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30g
Penguin 170
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate >5
pH 7.4
Temp 79
20% weekly water changes
Stock 5 kuhlii loaches, 20 neon tetras

This tank has been established for well over a year now. The past two days I have been losing neons; I just removed #8. Up until this last one they physically looked fine. The last, however, was missing its tail.

Any ideas on what's happening to these fish?

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Hi Theresa,
I really have no idea whats up with your neons.
Perhaps they are just getting old?
In my experience with neons, I got 14 to start.
6 of them died at approx. 1 year of age.
The other 8 have gone on, and now at 1.5 years of age
I have 6 remaining.
Perhaps it is just old age.
Tetras tend to get all raggedy looking when they
get very old.
You could try qting them and treating with a broad
spectrum antibiotic, like maracyn 2 or tri sulfa.


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Unfortunately last night I found another dead neon and a dead kuhlii

The remaining fish all have good color, are eating well and acting normally...I just can't figure it and out that's soooo frustrating

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

When everything points toward nothing being wrong, but fish are dying anyway, the problem may be viral. Antibiotics might help in that they'll prevent secondary infection (or there's some possibility of bacterial infection without outward symptoms). Extra water changes may be beneficial to slow the spread, hopefully.

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It really seems to look like a neon problem. I'm down to 3 now This started just after I had purchased a trio of apistos online. My bad but I don't have a QT tank so I had to put them in this tank. The apistos are very small and because of a mixup with my address they spent 3 days in transit in some rather high temperatures.

Anyhow the apistos are doing just fine, even though I'm still losing neons

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

That is strange. Maybe it is old age. I lost a neon a couple weeks ago. I thought it was NTD, but never got a definite cause. I only lost one though. I would've thought more would die if it was NTD. I have one neon with a lump on his tail. After a week in the hospital tank he was still fine, so I moved him back to the main tank. He's fine...just has a lump.

I've come to realize that neons are just a more sickly fish. I don't think I'll keep them anymore after mine die. I've never had any problems with other fish.

Sorry about your neons...its also weird that a Kuhli died.

Do you see any signs of parasites? That's the only thing I could think of...but you would see visible signs.

*Kristin*

Theres more than one pandemic disease hitting neon tetras at the moment, in my locality Ive decided to leave them well alone too. I actually bought some with ntd a while back, and I managed to save half of them, but there seems to be a complicating infection by another disease, as yet unidentified that is hindering their recovery. If most infected tetras get hit like this, thousands of then will die, unless a full time fish professional is on hand to help them. I think the problem is probably not helped by the lack of selective breeding in neons, and they are failing because they have lost inherited disease resistance. I think most wild tetras were immune to ntd once, but either the strain of disease is mutating and becoming more deadly , or the tetras are becoming less immune through successive generations of captivity. Im staying away from them too from now on, I have much more fragile fish that are doing much better, and theres no reason my tetras should fail now, apart from disease or general weakness. I really dont think there is anything you can do for many of them, which is a shame, cos I loved neons since I was a child.No way should they have been easier to keep then than they are now, but a lot of tetras being sold now, arent quarantined properly , and to be honest, are a bit crap.This is no small statement coming from me, as youve probably noticed, ill try and save just about any manky old fish! Neons though, I just give up. Ive tried everything, spent a bloody fortune, and all I managed to do was slow the death to a year instead of a few weeks.

Its a sad state of affairs.Personally I blame breeders and shops with all in one filter systems for the whole premises.