Argh! Neon Tetra Disease?

[marieukxx]

Whenever I change the water and clean my tank they lose all their red. I suppose it's due to stress. I added some new plants today and a snail so was fiddling about placing the plants. All the Cardinal Tetras are coloured up nicely again except two. One of them has a bit of his tail missing too which I assumed was bitten. The red is all faded on two of them.

I don't know if they're stressed and will take longer to colour back up or if it's neon tetra disease. The plants I added were put in really hot water then washed thoroughly.

I don't have a hospital tank. What should I do?

 

[marieukxx]

Well it turns out it's not. They are all nice and coloured up this morning

 

[matt_storey]

I find when a fish loses colour alot of the time its due to stress.

 

[fluttermoth]

I have green neon tetras and they lose nearly all their colour when they're really stressed; when being brought home from the LFS for instance; they've never been that stressed in my tank. I do have a large shoal though, that helps to give them confidence.
They also change their colour at night; if I switch the lights on too suddenly, before having the room lights on or curtains open, the blue stripe is gold with red speckles in.