Neon Tetra Disease?

[businesslamb]

Hi I was wondering if I (well not personally) have neon tetra disease. I added some neons to my tank which has been up and running for a couple of years. 2 days after adding the second batch of five I found one dead (and thankfully the body intact) yesterday I noticed one had lost a lot of it’s red colour and had a slightly bent spine and some white lumps, although it was behaving ok (feeding and shoaling with the others). The symptoms sounded like neon tetra disease so I removed and euthanized it. My question is. Is it NTD? and if so how contagious is it? Searching the site some seem to think that’s it for my neons (and other tetras) whilst others seem to think it can only be passed on by eating the corpses of infected fish so can be stopped by removing any fish displaying symptoms.
Here are my stats

Tank size: 120L
pH:7
ammonia:0
nitrite:0
nitrate:20ppm
kH:200mg/l
gH:240mg/l (13degrees)
tank temp:25 Celsius

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, colour, location, fish behaviour):
red colour faded and spine slightly bent a couple of small white lumps on the body. Behaviour normal
Volume and Frequency of water changes:
10% per week
Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:
seachem prime used to dechlorinate water
Tank inhabitants:
3 black phantoms
2 kribensis
1 bristlenose
8 neons
Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):
5 neons (3 weeks ago, after 3 weeks in quarantine) one died 2 days later
Exposure to chemicals: none

Any advice would be appreciated

Cheers

Businesslamb

 

[Sofia]

Hi,

When you say it had white lumps, do you mean that the lumps were under the skin and appeared white because the lump stretched the skin or were they white spots?

It does sound like neon tetra disease though, the disease is passed on by fish eating the corpse of the dead infected fish, NTD is not exclusive to neon tetras so your other fish may get it.

I would remove the remaining neons and put them back into the quarantine tank for another couple of weeks and monitor them, they will have introduced NTD into the tank and it's not worth taking the risk and infecting your other tank inhabitants.

If they are fine after a couple of weeks pop them back in.

Hope that helps!!

 

[WILDER]

Sounds like ntd to me they are showing all the symtoms of bleached out colour in the red regions, lumps that go to a point, and bent spines.

Destroy all the neons, I had ntd years back and which I destroyed all the neons in the first place, the desease wiped my whole tank out.

 

[Colin_T]

it sounds a bit like neon disease but the fact you quaratined them for 3 weeks tells me it's more likely to be a bacterial infection instead. Fish with the true neon tetra disease don't live very long and if they were fine for 3 weeks in the quarantine tank then they shouldn't have it.

Signs of neon disease include fading of the red line, the muscle in the body goes a milky white colour, the fish become sluggish and have trouble keeping their balance, swim eratically, sudden weight loss and they tend to swim off on their own instead of schooling.

We used to use Tetracycline based medications to treat it but they need a vet prescription to obtain them and the drugs wipes out filter bacteria.

It is highly contagious to other tetras, barbs & cichlids.
It is best to destroy any fish that shows symptoms and keep an eye on the others.

 

[WILDER]

There false ntd but I doubt it if yours have bending of the spine.
False ntd is saddleback columnaris will look fluffy in appearance go along the back and down the sides of the body to form a saddle shape.

Signs of ntd.
Bleached out colour in the red stripe area.
Milky white appearance had this sign with only about one of my tetra.
Yellowish colour in the blue area of the tetra, had that with another one of my tetra.
Black lining around the red, had this with most of my tetra.
Leaving the shoal.
Swimming oddly.
Bloating up and popeye, had both.
Bent spine.

 

[businesslamb]

Thanks for the advice I shall be keeping a close eye on them over the next few weeks and removing any that show any abnormal signs.

Cheers

Businesslamb

 

[WILDER]

Good luck.