Neon tetra swimming sideways!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Sidman24

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
752
One of my neon tetras is swimming sideways. Like it darts a little forward every couple of seconds. Any ideas what is wrong with him??? I heard it could be something to do with c02?? I just started dosing with c02 daily. Could that be the cause? My nitrates are kinda high too. Around 40 ppm. Advice to keep them down?? It's a 75 gallon planted tank.
 
Anyone? I secluded him and he seems to be doing a little better
 
Unless there is so much C02 it's causing suffocation it's probably not the cause. If levels were high enough to affect breathing, it would affect all fish too.

The nitrates are higher than most prefer to have them. Levels up to 50ppm are said to be safe, but most try to keep them below 20ppm. Do more water changes to lower the nitrate levels, and plants can help use it up as well, and if this is a planted tank, with a lot of plants, then I think you may not be doing enough water changes to keep up with the nitrates. How many fish, and what kind, are you keeping in the tank ?

I'd keep the fish isolated and observe. It may be sick, it may not be, but the best thing is what you've done already, remove it from the main tank until you can find out what's up. There really isn't anything particular to do with just this symptom as yet other than keep the water it is in very, very clean.

If it continues to improve you can return it to the tank later on. If more symptoms appear, post them. The erratic swimming is not necessarily a sign of something terrible, but it's not normal either, so isolation is the best thing for now.
 
Unless there is so much C02 it's causing suffocation it's probably not the cause. If levels were high enough to affect breathing, it would affect all fish too. The nitrates are higher than most prefer to have them. Levels up to 50ppm are said to be safe, but most try to keep them below 20ppm. Do more water changes to lower the nitrate levels, and plants can help use it up as well, and if this is a planted tank, with a lot of plants, then I think you may not be doing enough water changes to keep up with the nitrates. How many fish, and what kind, are you keeping in the tank ? I'd keep the fish isolated and observe. It may be sick, it may not be, but the best thing is what you've done already, remove it from the main tank until you can find out what's up. There really isn't anything particular to do with just this symptom as yet other than keep the water it is in very, very clean. If it continues to improve you can return it to the tank later on. If more symptoms appear, post them. The erratic swimming is not necessarily a sign of something terrible, but it's not normal either, so isolation is the best thing for now.

Thanks for the reply! I removed him last night and just returned him tonight. He seems to be better. He is now schooling with his kind, as of yesterday he was not. I also did a water change. Hopefully he continues to get better! I read online and think he may be having swim bladder? Would that sound right?
 
Swim bladder damage is possible of course. It's not as common as it might seem from stuff online though, and happens more often to goldfish. But if a fish hits something hard enough, it can damage itself, and potentially damage the swim bladder. In some fish, constipation seems to be part of the issue, but that's hard to fix if that's the case. Some fish can be tricked into eating some tiny bits of cooked, skinned peas but many won't eat it and it's not something proven, just a popular remedy that seems to work sometimes. Most popular with people keeping discus fish.

If he seems ok, great but keep an eye on him, just in case it's the start of something. Like many popular fish, neons are bred in the millions, so genetic defects are not that uncommon, and some don't appear 'til the fish is a bit older. Good luck
 
Back
Top Bottom