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What can anyone tell me abotu this disease? I think my neons might have it. Theyeach have 2 lumps under their bellies. I don;t see anytihng wrong with my other fish. I jsut noticed it yesterday and I do not think there was anything wrong with them before that. Could you guys tell me what you know about this disease. PLEASE!!!



Christina

Ok, the WEIRDEST thing happened. I jsut went to look at my tetras again to check on them, and the lumps are gone!!! They look fine! I will continue to keep an eye on them just to be sure. HAs anyone had this happen before? They weren't reall yacting any different. They just had big lumps under their bellies....odd. Is there anyone who can tell me anyting abotu this?



Christina

I would say that they either had digestive system problems or they were ripe with eggs and layed them.

I had one Neon for about 3 months with a lump and the only time it got smaller (slowly, not all of a sudden) was before the fish died.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

They must have both had some weird digestive problems because i have had them for a while and there are only 2 in there so there is no way that they could have had eggs. I know 2 is not enough but I have to wait to get more because I have to get rid of a few fish first because my tank is overstocked a bit at the moment. When I get the fish out of there that I want to get out of there I will probably add more or move them to my 25 gallon with the cardinals or something. Thanks for the tip Little Fish. You have helped me alot on some of these posts!



Chistina

Most elongated fish like Neon Tetras and Rasboras will develop noticeable lumps on their undersides after eating a large meal. It is nothing to worry about as long as the fish look and act healthy.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Neon Tetra disease is a degenerative disease, its slow and fish often become totally skeletal and debilitated before they die.Sunken stomachs are more usual than lumps.

Its probably worms.

I was talking to a guy who runs a long time and outstanding LFS, who said to make sure that i put in one particular kind of medication every month. my problem is i forgot what it was.

but he said to make sure you have this in with the neons, and it will help prevent the neon tetra disease.

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

Neon tetra disease is actually caused by a sporozoan parasite, specifically Pleistophora hyphessobryconis. There is no current treatment for it although since it is a sporozoan, some steroid treatments may effectively prevent it from spreading by preventing its reproduction. To give you an idea of what youre up against - malaria is a sporozoan infection too, and is still the deadliest disease on earth. Generally broad spectrum antibiotics will not work against it, and since a huge number of steroid treatments have some radical effects on fish, were still waiting for someone to develop a specific immuno-developed drug against neon tetra disease. Its doubtful anything less would work, but there is a financial incentive for it to happen , tetras are a mainstay of the hobby after all. Lets hope some nice scientist hurries the hell up with a suitable immunisation. I think we are talking immunisation here though,rather than sinple chemical treatment, and getting it administered could be next to impossible, and the effectiveness of the drug would have to involve natural antibodies in the fish, so its development will be very , very, difficult.

The parasite itself is usually orally ingested as a cyst, which then inhabits the intestines, and finally rests in the muscle tissues , so a drug to treat it would have to be truly systemic.

The fact that the cysts are ingested means that you have a certain control over its spread. The following may help you avoid infections.

1) Quarantine all new tetras , and other fish that can catch the disease- like selected barbs etc, for at least a month, and preferably much longer, I guess the maximum potential for the disease to infect a fish, not leave visible symptoms and still reproduce has to be around the 8 week mark, so that means a potential quarantine of up to 12 weeks if you want to be completely sure of not passing on infection from a group quarantine. It may be more practical to destroy the entire batch of newly acquired fish when one fish is known to be infected since individuals may have increased resistance and last over a month with full blown symptoms. Typically fish only survive three weeks or less with a full blown infection, but longer infections are possible. Quarantine your plants too !Cysts could be hidden on leaves or in root balls etc.

2) Most cysts will enter a tank with fish or with live foods like tubifex , snails, shrimp or indeed other fish, ( intemediary hosts) any scavanging species will be especially likely to pick cysts up. Avoid live feedings, theyre not really essential for neons anyway, you can get by on dried , or gamma irradiated frozen foods just fine.

3) Practice regular water, gravel and equipment cleaning as rather like malaria, neon tetra disease outbreaks usually occur when parasite numbers are high. Keeping the tank scrupulously clean will limit the chances of a life threatening infection.

4) Some scientific research has been done into blackwater extract acting as a mild preventative. Neons kept in blackwater extract for an unknown reason seem to have higher antibody resistance to the disease. It is by no means a real cure or real preventative though.High level infestations will infect the fish whether you use blackwater extract or not, but its just another extra little thing you can do to improve your chances.

4) Euthanise infected fish immediately, do not allow the fortnightly life cycle of Pleistophora hyphessobryconis to be reached, or the cysts will affect other fish in the tank. Do not allow the infected fish to be eaten or die in the tank.

If you take these steps you can pretty much guarantee that 99% of the time your tank should never play host to a Pleistophora hyphessobryconis outbreak, but there is an outside chance that other, larger parasites could transmit the parasite during their predation (leeches etc).





Last edited by longhairedgit at 19-Nov-2005 22:42

My neons are fine, I think they were jsut a little bloated at the time. I watched them for about a week just to make sure there was nothing wrong with them. I also got to move them to a bigger tank this past friday because I had 4 others in it waiting their arrival and they are doing great. I think they ahve kind of taken over the group because they are usually leading the school.
Anyway, I am glad they are doing well and thanks for the help.


Christina

Good post Longhair!!

I would just like to add that some Columnaris infections can mimic NTD, there's no way to know the difference without a post-mortem.

If the tank is expensive, it is worth isolating any fish with suspected NTD in very strict quarantine and bombarding with antibiotics. If it is NTD, there will be no improvement. If it is Columnaris, the fish may still die, but some improvement should be obvious before death. Then you can treat the main tank with antibiotics.

It goes without saying that any tank with confirmed or suspected NTD should be on strict quarantine for the life of the tank. These diseases can be incredibly nasty!

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions