Neon Tetras Prone To Shock Easily?

Drum4JC · Jul 28, 2009

For those of you with Neon experience: Do you find them delicate and prone to shock easily? I bought them because I read that they were fairly easy to deal with and hearty. But I lost several neons from my first batch over a period of several weeks a couple of months ago. 3 survived and are doing great. They are huge! I just bought 5 more and they are in the quarantine tank right now. I just scooped them into a container so I could change their water and one of them shocked, just like my other ones did while in the main tank. Just stopped moving and is unresponsive. I'm sure he will be dead in a few hours just like the others. It was still in his same water so no sudden chemical changes took place. Any ideas or other experiences to share?

MBOU · Jul 28, 2009

my answer is DEFINATELY! Neons just are NOT the hardy little fish that everyone wants. To be honest, i make a habit of not selling neons to an imature tank, make sure its had fish in it and settled, no fluctuations in water quality or anything. I also bag them with Acclimol because the second i put them in the bag they all go belly up for 2-3 seconds then once they realise they arent dead, they try to go suffocate each other trying to escape the bag. Acclimol seems to really do the job with them, clownloach and cardinals too!

Drum4JC · Jul 29, 2009

Wow. Yet another case of conflicting info on fish. I read several accounts of Neons being pretty easy to deal with. But as I said, that's far from the truth. So, if these guys don't make it, I'll wait a good long time to get more. I really like them and they compliment my tank well.

I'm not familiar with acclimol. I'll have to see about that next time.

Thanks!

Anybody else have any tips?

Drum4JC · Jul 30, 2009

It looks like acclimol is a European product is there anything similar I can get in the US?

MBOU · Jul 30, 2009

JBL make Acclimol, i know they supply the UK and Europe, they are a German company but you could get their products online maybe? Another good one is API Stress Coat, its a dechlorinator but reduces stress levels too.

degsod · Jul 30, 2009

Apparently asprin workins, there are some posts on this site.

Drum4JC · Jul 30, 2009

Yes it looks like I can order online but the shipping might make it a bit too costly. I was hoping for something I can pick up locally.

Aspirin. Hmmm. I'll do a search on that in here and study it. Thanks for the tip!

Drum4JC · Aug 4, 2009

I tried the aspirin. I crushed about a third of a tablet into powder and stirredit into the quarantine tank. I waited about 15 minutes and began the transfer process. I went slow and by the book. When I added th, one almost immediately started looking woozy. The betta and a danio went right after him and I got him back into the other tank. He looked intermittently good and bad. But he was dead by morning. This morning we found that another one thst looked out of it. We moved it back to quarantine. I doubt he will make it.

So only two of five appear ok so far. One didn't survive a water change and now these two. I'll proabaly not get any more of these. Too darn fragile.

MBOU · Aug 4, 2009

No offense but maybe down to water quality, conditions, ph, temperature, shock, how mature the tank is and so on...

API make a dechlorinaton called Stress Coat, thats good ttoo..

Drum4JC · Aug 5, 2009

MBOU said:
No offense but maybe down to water quality, conditions, ph, temperature, shock, how mature the tank is and so on...

API make a dechlorinaton called Stress Coat, thats good ttoo..

No offense taken. As a rookie aquarist I've discovered a lot of mistakes I've been making (see my thread "drastic drop in ph" for example...

I've learned here that they need a well matured tank and I don't have one (yet). ph may play a role, but it's not an absolute thing since my older tetras survived my ph disaster. Maybe I'll lighten up after the tank matures and I continue to learn.

By the way, the tetra that was acting odd today while I was at work appears to be ok. my daughter couldn't catch him to put him in the hospital tank, but now he seems fine. we'll just have to wait and see.

Thanks again for the input folks.

Drum4JC · Aug 6, 2009

Well two of the new Tetras kicked the bucket today while I was at work. ph is 7.0. all other readings at zero. So that just leaves one survivor of 5 from the new batch. Needless to say, I'm exasperated over these little guys. Disgusted really.