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Two weeks ago I had 4 healthy rummynose, four big healthy neons and three pacific blue eyes. The tank is well established and I've never had any problems with disease etc. It's not a small tank (but not a huge one either), so I though I would add some more neons, so I purchased four small neons from my lfs (they gave me three extra for free). Within two days three of the new neons had died and now all I have left is three rummynose and two blue-eyes. All my old neons have gone, and a rummynose started swimming upside down & sideways yesterday & I found the poor thing dead this morning

I always net in new fish (don't add tank water from the lfs) and am puzzled!

Oh.. there was also an old bristlenose, a pakistani loach and a pristella tetra that managed to survive and the day before I had removed two black widow tetras into another tank.

Even without adding LFS water, it is possible that your new neons brought a disease into the tank. The new fish had probably either not gotten it bad enough to show symptoms, or had already been sick, survived, and are now carriers of the disease. I'm sure there are a number of pathogens that could cause this. I'm leaning toward a virus, as you haven't mentioned much as far as symptoms besides the rummy swimming funny.

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I'm inclined to agree. Neons are a bit of a crapshoot nowadays -- they can either work out fine or, which is getting more and more common, they can be a major vector in introducing disease into a tank. They probably were fighting some kind of pathogen in the LFS, but it took the stress of acclimating to a new tank that pushed them over the edge. Once those neons were full-fledged sick, they started giving it to other fish. I'd guess it's either a virus or a protozoan. Did you notice any other symptoms? Loss of coloration, weird spinal curvature, dropsy?

No loss of colouration that I could notice - the rummynose that died was brightly coloured around the nose area even when it started swimming strangely (kind of arcing around the tank on it side, swimming upside down etc), but no spinal curvature as such. I didn't see any strange behaviour from my older neons - they simply disappeared. I did find one of the dead new neons and it was still coloured. No signs of dropsy from any of the fish.

I noticed last night that the pacific blue eyes have started clamping their fins so worried that the last two are sick now.

I have no idea what, if any, treatment to administer, but I feels pretty helpless just watching them die!


Edit: one thing I did notice is when I found the dead neon (floating on the surface) even though it's head and tail were intact, the centre or body of the fish was just a mass of foamy bubbles. The red of it's tail was still very visible.

Just been reading about neon disease.. sounds very very bad

Foamy bubbles? You mean gas bubble disease? That seems very unlikely, though, as it would require water supersaturated with gasses...

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Given the amount of tetrahymena out there from asian bred and imported fish, Id suspect that first, it literally shreds its victimes to nothing by draining nutrients, thinning skin and muscle until the fish actually starts to disintegrate, then other faster killers like aeromonas take hold, and destroy the gut and cause red patches and septacaemia. I assume the bubbling is bacterial activity destroying the corpse and producing gas post mortem.

Worth a shot with a formalin and malachite green compound, something like myaxazin, to start killing the ciliates, then a decent antibiotic afterwards to bump any aeromonas on the head.

Just an update.

I notice some small fungal infections which I treated with some white spot remedy (formaldehyde and malachite green). I've been away for a few days and only checked the tank again today. I did notice before I left that one of my three remaining rummynoses was looking thin. Today I noticed that it was doing the same whirling swimming motion and had a kinked spine (not from side to side, but up and down). I just netted and examined it and there were no signs of any parasite or dead tissue.

Will retreat the tank again today and just have to keep a close eye on things from now on I guess.

Neons are raised (mass produced) in huge tanks - with a lot of antibiotics. Once they are shipped, they begin to die. They are given to a nasty little bug called Neon Tetra disease - very contagious to neons, but can spred to other fish as well. This site might be of help to you:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art3619.asp
I hope this still works - a pictoral guide to fish diseases.
There is no known cure for neon tetra disease, but it is hard to say just what it might be.

Well, that website seems to be out of commission, but here are two others worth looking into:
http://fishyfarmacy.com/symptoms.html
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/disease.html

Thanks for the info and advice everyone.

I've been looking into neon tetra disease but am still puzzled as none of the fish I have seen getting sick or dead reflected the main symptoms (the white/dead patches of flesh), and only one had a slightly bent spine. So am not sure if it is indeed tetra disease, which I'm hoping it isn't!

Probably mycobacterium by the sounds of it. Fish TB. Classic disease for causing spinal deformity, seems to be on something of a rise in asian imported fish, im on a few sites, people reporting the same symptoms everywhere. It might be reaching epidemic levels in some areas.

Im seeing so many sick fish near me for the first time since I started fishkeeping im actually considering closing off my collection to new aquisitions for the rest of the year, quarantined or not.

Things have gone crazy, KHV , rhabdoviruses, and aeromonas in the carp, NTD with the tetras. Viruses, trematodia, and nocardia on the gouramies, hexamita everywhere in goldies and cichlids, tetrahymena and oodinium on the guppies and livebearers. New staphylococci body rot on some of the characins, massive amounts of ich in the marines, oodinium on clowns, its just everywhere I go. Cant find a good blue ram anywhere.

Seriously, as of this moment, my collection is closed off. Nothing new for 6 months, maybe the rest of the year. Never thought id say that.

I think the importers and the big shop systems are just getting into complete quarantine failure around me, and im hearing it all over. Seriously , times have never been this bad for disease. Never.