Neon Tetra Disease

[amanda8beechwood]

Hi there, we noticed a neon had lost its colour a couple of weeks ago and was swimming funny so we euthanised it, then did a 75% water change. All the water stats were fine and the other fish seemed ok as well as the remaining two neons. We then got a couple of new fish which brought whitespot to the tank. We treated for this. We then noticed that one of our guppies tail was getting smaller and smaller so we treated for finrot. We thought this had made all the fish flick against the bog wood because of the meds but today another neon is losing its colour. Do we have the dreaded neon tetra disease do you think. We're really worried about losing all the fish now so we going to euthanise the two neons but we also have 5 well established glowlights in there too, they have been really hardy fish. We have in the tank 3 platies, 2 guppies, 1 plec, 2 albino coreys and 5 glowlights, two of the platies are flicking and both guppies but the other fish aren't. If they do have neon tetra disease will the guppies and platies definitely die or is it possible for them to recover

 

[nmonks]

Amanda --

Neon Tetra Disease (NTD) is relatively common among neon tetras these days. But its symptoms are very consistent: first the fish becomes shy and leaves the school, then it loses colour, and then it dies. NTD generally doesn't infect other fish, though it can, and the parasite involved has been reported from things as diverse as angelfish and goldfish. So while 99% of the time it's just neons and, to some extent, cardinals, that get it, you can't rule out other fish getting it.

That said, NTD is relatively easy to stop. You can't cure it, and any fish infected with it either in your tank or at the retailer *will* die. Nothing on the market provides a consistent cure. But, NTD infects other "clean" fish through cannibalism/pecking at the corpse. So if you remove any infect fish at the first sign of trouble, eventually NTD dies out. So what you often find is that you buy 20 neons, half of them die within 2-3 months, but after that, you're fine and the neons go on to live another 4 years (their normal life expectancy).

"Flicking" is usually to do with whitespot rather than NTD. While we often think of whitespot as a skin disease, the serious damage is done to the gills, and the flicking is an attempt by the fish to "itch" the irritation on its gills. You sometimes see a similar behaviour when the ammonia levels go up, for the same reasons, the gills are being burned or at least irritated. So, treat your tank for whitespot.

Make 100% sure you have removed any carbon from the system. Carbon is almost always pointless in the average home aquarium anyway. But it absorbs medications, so you can treat the tank with bottles of medication and yet your fish will stay sick. Lots and lots of people forget this or aren't warned about it by their retailer.

Cheers, Neale

 

[amanda8beechwood]

Thanks so much for your advice. We did all the whitespot treatments last week and then the fish seemed fine. There are no visible signs of whitespot and fish that have originally had whitespot are flicking. I'd heard they normally don't get it again. But anyway, there are no signs of whitespot on the fish. All their fins etc are very pert. There are no signs at all apart from the flicking. Hopefully then, with us removing the neon tetras the NTD will stop. I just hope thats not what the platies and guppies have got. We've done another 75% water change and I'm going to take some readings now to check its not an ammonia problem x