Neon tetras losing color?

[kamo87]

Hello everybody.

I have a 30 gal. cycled aquarium with excelent water parameters, I do 20% water changes weekly, awlays use water conditioner and everything was ok untill my school of 5 neon tetras start losing coloration. First I thought it's because of the light because they did not show any other symptoms such as restlesness or eating problems. So I did not put them in the QT untill yesterday when I've noticed white spots on the 2 of them. The strange thing is that when I put them in the QT, I don't see the spots any more but one of the tetras seems to have a problem with its spine. First I thouth it can be ITCH but now I have doubts for a neon tetra disease. Today when I woke up I noticed that my blue gourami doesn't swim and abreathing fast. PLEASE HELP ME BEACAUSE I DON"T WANNA LOSE ANY FISH. I WANT TO DO SOMETHING IMMEDIATELY.

Thank you in advance, Kamen

 

[peaceablegarden]

Hi Kamen,
I'm not one of the real experts here, but I guess they are gonna have some questions...
1. What exactly are your water parameters?
2. How long have you had the fish in question or have you added any new fish or any new plants etc?

I just went through a scare with my neons. I lost two. One with no symptoms and one with faded coloring. No other symptoms were noted. So far so good no other losses for about 5 days. I'm finding that neons are just not hardy at all (I actually think I lost two because I disrupted the tank by adding three Glolights and removing my Oto and it stressed them). It sounds like you might have Neon Tetra Disease to me especially with the combination of discoloration and spine deformity. My understanding is that there is no cure and once your tank has it, you have to clean it out and start all over again. Don't want to freak you out though. It's great you have a hospital tank. Hopefully you'll be hearing from the real experts here soon. One question I have about the disease is the incubation period? I can't seem to find that information anywhere. I had my Neons for several months.

 

[darkmule27]

I'm also not an expert, but I have a huge neon scare when we first got ours...about half got weirdly lumpy on their undersides...so I buried myself in research on NTD. (Happy ending: they're all fine, super bright)

The spine and fading color DOES sound like NTD. Are the white spots like grains of salt (if so, it's probably ich and would affect the gourami) or white patches (in which case it's probably NTD)?

As pointed out in my second link, it can be confused with other infections. Unless you feed live food, it is LIKELY it is something else (which would affect the gourami also). From what I understand, there is very little (if any) incubation period, so (if I understand correctly) it's probably not NTD.

These articles will (hopefully) be of some help:
Fish Disease - Neon Tetra Disease
Aquarium (and Pond) Answers: Neon Tetra Disease
Aquarium FD - Neon Tetra Disease (Pleistophora hyphessobryconis) - Disease Identification, Diagnosis & Treatment

Hope this helps and hopefully your fish recover.

 

[kamo87]

Hi Kamen,
I'm not one of the real experts here, but I guess they are gonna have some questions...
1. What exactly are your water parameters?
2. How long have you had the fish in question or have you added any new fish or any new plants etc?

I just went through a scare with my neons. I lost two. One with no symptoms and one with faded coloring. No other symptoms were noted. So far so good no other losses for about 5 days. I'm finding that neons are just not hardy at all (I actually think I lost two because I disrupted the tank by adding three Glolights and removing my Oto and it stressed them). It sounds like you might have Neon Tetra Disease to me especially with the combination of discoloration and spine deformity. My understanding is that there is no cure and once your tank has it, you have to clean it out and start all over again. Don't want to freak you out though. It's great you have a hospital tank. Hopefully you'll be hearing from the real experts here soon. One question I have about the disease is the incubation period? I can't seem to find that information anywhere. I had my Neons for several months.

Thanks a lot for the response.


As I said I have almost perfect water marameters - ph 7.2, 0 amonia, 0 nitrates(not sure if I'm spelling it right).
I have had the tetras and the gourami for about 3 months and they were doing perfect untill now. Actually the gourami and my female platy died today and I'm really worried about the rest of my fish. The tetras are still in the QT(I added some Meth Blue just because I really have no idea what else to do). Unfortunetely I cannot add neither meds nor salt to my community tank because of the black ghost knife cuz it's scaleless and I don't want to hurt him. So for now(unfortunetly) I have to just wait to see what will happen.
P.S. I forgot to tell you that I added to swordtails 2 weeks ago.

 

[kamo87]

I'm also not an expert, but I have a huge neon scare when we first got ours...about half got weirdly lumpy on their undersides...so I buried myself in research on NTD. (Happy ending: they're all fine, super bright)

The spine and fading color DOES sound like NTD. Are the white spots like grains of salt (if so, it's probably ich and would affect the gourami) or white patches (in which case it's probably NTD)?

As pointed out in my second link, it can be confused with other infections. Unless you feed live food, it is LIKELY it is something else (which would affect the gourami also). From what I understand, there is very little (if any) incubation period, so (if I understand correctly) it's probably not NTD.

These articles will (hopefully) be of some help:
Fish Disease - Neon Tetra Disease
Aquarium (and Pond) Answers: Neon Tetra Disease
Aquarium FD - Neon Tetra Disease (Pleistophora hyphessobryconis) - Disease Identification, Diagnosis & Treatment

Hope this helps and hopefully your fish recover.

Thanks a lot for the advice.
That's what I thought first about the NTD but they're doing very well in the QT right now even though they look a little ugly, but unfortunetly I've lost the gouramie and a female platy today, and also one of my swordtails started breathing fast and became motionless, so I put it in the QT with the tetras and add some meth blue(because I really don't know what else I can do). If my Community tank is infected there is no way to do something with meds or salt because of my scaleless fish, and I really feel terrible about that - just staying and whatching how they die.(((

 

[kamo87]

Unfortunetly after some more research I started suspecting fish tubercolosis. The symtoms are similar and I've read that the incubation period can last up to 2 years( no other disease with my fish' symptoms has such a long incubation). Again Unfortunetly I even started to worry about myself because today I did a mouth siphing in my little QT and is very likely to catch the fish TB. I really hope to be wrong ( what an awful day).
Please guys tell me I'm wrong(((

 

[peaceablegarden]

ph 7.2, 0 amonia, 0 nitrates

Sorry about your losses. It's really frustrating to lose any fishy buddies. Looking at your parameters. You didn't include nitrItes. If you're at 0 nitrAtes, I'd be suspicious that you're beginning another cycle. But that would be my guess anyway. I'd be doing some daily 30% or so water changes regardless. I'm not sure about the tuberculosis. I don't think its very common. Again, I'm not the most qualified here, but I always default to water quality since it seems to be the most common reason for ailing fish.

 

[missileman]

Nitrate 0? How about Nitrite?
If nitrate is 0 you have a problem. Your tank has not cycled. The end product of the nitrogen cycle is nitrate and you should have some in a cycled tank.

 

[meegosh]

Mouth siphoning?!? People still do that? I just stick my thumb on the end of the tube/hose, fill the vacuum part up with water and hold that end up in the air. I stick the tube/hose end into a bucket and let some water out of the vacuum part until the whole hose is filled with water. Plug the hose right before the vacuum part runs out of water. You should have the hose filled with water and about an inch or so of water left in the vac part. Stick the vacuum part back in your tank and get the bubbles out, let go of your thumb on the hose and you have an instant/tasteless siphon.

Sorry to thread jack you, I used to do the "shake" method until I found out about this. Good luck with the neons, I started with 10 and I now have 5, NTD was the culprit for me.