Please Help- very sick tetra's!

[lulu]

Hi there everyone,

I'm afraid i'm having some serious trouble with my neon tetra's and was wondering if anyone would be able to help me out!

I have a well established tank and recently added 15 neons to the crew. within a few days 3 died and since then on average 1 or 2 have died per day.

pH & chemical levels etc all seem fine and the rest of the fish in the tank seem completely unaffected by any disease - does anyone have any ideas as to what it could be?!

I would greatly appreciate any help on the issue,

Thanks, Lulu xx

 

[jrd77]

I'm guessing you had no way to quarantine them first....hmmmm....

Maybe adding 15 all at once was too much??? Not sure about that...Maybe someone else would know.

It really just have could been the stress of the tetras being used to the LPS water conditions and then coming into your water which although might be perfect, it sould have been paramters different from what they were used to and were shocked by it...Any other signs of disease? Will they eat?

 

[WILDER]

How long has the tank been set up, what was the ph of the store to your tank.

 

[lulu]

The tank is plenty big enough to hold the fish and i have a good spread of bottom middle and top feeders so i don't think its a space issue.

the tank has been up and running now for over 8 months with no problems before i added the tetras.

The pH store pH was around the 7.2 mark and I normally keep mine around the 7.3-5 - could this be the problem?

 

[WILDER]

Your tank has been set up long enough for them as they need a mature tank, if you climatised them properly can't be ph, sounding like a bad batch of neons i'm afraid, start to panic if they loose there colour in the red stripe.

 

[lulu]

forgot to add that there appears to be no abnormal behaviour at all - they're eating and swimming fine, no loss of colour etc.

 

[jrd77]

I would think +- .3 in pH would not be enough to kill but Wilder might know...

What about temperature differences? Or differences in salt content? Or is there now a disease in the tank you purchased them from that was not evident they day you were there?

How are the other 12 doing?

 

[lulu]

think i'm just going to have to start again with them - what a nightmare!

thanks for the help though - it's always good to know that i'm not completely on my own!!

 

[lulu]

I asked the shop i got them from about the rest of the batch and they said they had experienced no problems.

Unfortunately i only have 5 left so i'm hoping i'll be able to save them.

should i be adding salt?

 

[WILDER]

Not with neons but they can tolerate a small amount of salt ,if you lose neons in a few days of buying them don't blame yourself it can be stress and they ere a weak strain.

 

[BettaMomma]

How big is your tank, and what else do you already have in it?

 

[jrd77]

Good luck lulu...I hope you can save the remaining 5...

 

[Jen21]

I also had a few neons die right after I bought them. I think they were just weaker fish, because all the others were fine. Don't blame yourself and good luck with the remaining ones!