Neon Tetra Disease!

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az9

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Im pretty sure thats the name anyway...

I just got some neon tetras Friday and yesterday i noticed some of them had white spots and i thought it was ich so i did a water change and added ich meds then i did some research and found that its probably neon tetra disease. I know there's no meds for it but is there anything I can do to save them?
 
How many gallons is the tank please?
How many fish and which type?
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph?
 
How big are the spots. Are they bigger than a grain of salt?
Are they covered in spots, or only just a few, Where are they on the fish?
Any sign of flicking and rubbing against objects in the tank?
Any signs of laboured breathing, or gasping at surface of tank?
 
 
 
Signs of NTD
 
Red area will look bleached out.
Blue area will have a milky substance, or turn a golden yellow colour.
Black lining around the tail area.
Fish will leave shoal.
Fish will become restless.
Bent spine.
Swimming in an odd manor.
Later stages dropsy, popeye.
 
30 gallon.
2 gouramis, for albino corys, 2 platys and 12 neon tetras.
No test kit but they should all be fine because the other fish are acting normal.
I saw more spots yesterday than today. They're not bigger than a grain of salt and there's only a few spots. The spots that i see are around the dorsal fin. I don't see any flicking or rubbing against anything. Most of them are hiding but some are swimming around and it looks like there being aggressive towards eachother. Chasing eachother around and nipping at fins.
And they all seem to be scattered around the tank.
 
The fish you have are usually compatible.
 
Is sounds like whitespot to me if the spots are the size of a grain  of salt.
 
The spots look bigger in the pic, but this fish has whitespot.
 
 
 

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Funny everone with a sick neons comes up with Neon Tetra Disease. There is too much false info available on the internet. It's quite rare, very contagious, lethal and shows other symptoms than you're describing.
Big chance it's "ordinary" Ich though there have been several threads with bigger spots / lumps lately on neons and cardinals.
Try to place a pic.
 
Cheers Aad
 
I sure hope its ich which sounds weird but neon tetra disease sounds worse than ich.

I don't think it that wilder. There's only like 1 or 2 spots on them.
Sorry doubledutch The only camera i have is on my Ipod and if i posted a pic from that all you would see is a blue streak. :p
 
One, or two spots the size of a grain of salt is still whitespot.
 
 
I had neon tetra disease in my tank and the disease wiped the whole tank out.
White spots are not the sign of NTD. So don't panic.
 
Ok. How deadly is white spot? Would ich meds work on it? Ive never had white spot.
 
I only had to deal with it once.
 
Just make sure the spots are very small the size of a grain of salt.
 
Add the whitespot medication but only half dose with the corys, and neons in the tank.
Remove black carbon from filter.
Increase aeration due to medications reducing 02 in the water.
Raise temp to 30.
 
Get you some information on whitespot, or ich as american's call it..
 

Ich (a.k.a. White Spot)

 

 

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Symptoms:

Fish infected with Ich will have pure white, salt-like spots approximately 1 millimeter in size on their body and fins. Fins are most often affected first. If their gills become infected, the fish will show increased gill movements. These white spots, or cysts, may join together to form irregular white patches. If left untreated, the spots will slowly advance to cover the whole body and fins (6-24 hours). Fish with Ich may rub or scrape on rocks or gravel in an attempt to relieve irritation. Redness and blood streaks will appear on both the body and fins as the condition worsens. Its fins will deteriorate as the parasites burrow into the flesh destroying it. Fishes that are infected do not show early sickliness, and may even continue feeding lightly.
 


 

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Cause: 

The parasite Ichthyophthirius multifilisIchtyophthirius has a direct fish-to-fish cycle and thus can build up quickly in the limited space of an aquarium. Each white spot seen is actually a single living, feeding parasite attached to the fish�s skin. When first attached, these parasites are not yet visible to the naked eye. After feeding on the body fluids of the fish for a couple of days, the parasites become encysted and are then visible on the fish as small white spots. After several days the parasites break free from the fish and fall to the bottom of the aquarium where they begin to reproduce rapidly. Within 24 hours each cyst can contain up to 500 new parasites. When the cyst breaks open hundreds of free-swimming parasites are released into the water. These new parasites then seek out a host (fish) to attach themselves to and feed on. These parasites can only be killed when in the free-swimming stage. Seondary bacterial infections are common.
 


 

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Treatment: 

Carry out a 25%-40% partial water change and treat immediately with either Quick Cure (which is highly effective), or Rid-Ich, Rid-Ick+, Ick Guard, Ick Guard II, Clout and Super Ick Cure. In very hard water the treatment should be performed two times a day, in the early morning and late at night. Since the protozoan, while attached to the host is immune to treatment, this has to be aimed against the free swimming stages. Slowly raising the water temperature to 90 degrees (if the fish can tolerate it) for a few hours every 2 or 3 days may be effective.

Ich is highly contagious, therefore, the entire aquarium and not just a single fish should be treated.

 
 
Fish Disease net
 
Hey thanks for all the help! I didn't do all of that treatment stuff but i did do a 25% water change and added rid-ich+ the day i saw the white spots and i just looked at the tank and all the neons were together and swimming around and i don't see any white spots. :) That was the quickest recovery ive ever seen. Just this morning they looked pretty bad.
 
The parasite will still be in your tank : be sure to complete the course.
 
You can also help by doing gravel vacs. Since the white spots have fallen off your fish they are now hiding in the substrate. There they parasite will mature into the free-swimmers which will then go out looking for a host. It is during that time that the meds will be working. If a free-swimmer finds a host quicker than the meds can work you will continue having to deal with the infection. Doing gravel vacs will reduce the amount of cysts hidden in the substrate and this will reduce the amount of free-swimmers looking for a host. 
 
Just make sure you replace the amount of meds taken out with the gravel vac. I hope it all will turn out well for you! :)
 
when the tank is treated and the parasite starts dying, do the salt-like deposits fall off and does it leave any marks or scars on the fish?
 
orangegecko said:
when the tank is treated and the parasite starts dying, do the salt-like deposits fall off and does it leave any marks or scars on the fish?
The "salt-like deposits" fall off the fish as it matures, they are not dead at that time, since they are not vulnerable to any treatment during that stage in their cycle. I've never heard of or seen it leaving any marks on the fish as they fall off. 
 
Thanks for all this advice! Ill be sure to vaccume and keep up on the meds. :)
 

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