New Planted Tank Issues Fish Dying Too

[chicken_tamer]

ok i have cycled my tank for 3 weeks, on sunday went out and bought 10 neon tetras and 2 bristle nose cat fish,

by from what ive read online it looks like they have "neon tetra disease" and they are dying i have lost 4 so far, i assume due to the nature of this disease and the fact that i couldent find one of the dead ones for a few days the rest of them will die, my concern is the bristle nose cat fish are they doomed the same fate as these little ones ??.

also before the fish i have added around 15 plants lighting and co2 injection i am using a mixture of peat and vermiculite for the substrate which either that or the driftwood seems to be still tanning the water im noticing over these past few days that some of the plants leaves are dying is this fairly normal ?? also i am leaving the light on from when i wake up in the morning till when i go to bed at night is this too long ??

 

[rhiannonk]

What are the water parameters for your tank? Ammonia levels? Nitrite levels? By "cycled" I'm assuming you mean that you added a source of ammonia and did regular water testing which revealed that eventually all of the ammonia was being converted to nitrates, with no residual nitrite and ammonia levels? If this is not the case, then please read up on tank cycling. Otherwise, I would still check your levels because you did add quite a few fish at once - so maybe the beneficial bacteria were not plentiful enough to handle the large bioload? I would check params before making conclusions about neon tetra disease. Also, if you are concerned about what you have spreading, do you have a quarantine tank that you can use?

Usually about 8 hours is good for lighting ... if you see that you are developing algae, you may want to decrease the light levels. How your plants do really will depend on what types of plants they are. I would read up on each species - often, pet stores sell plants that are not truly aquatic as "aquarium plants" so they may not survive for the long term. Also, there are many plants like hornwort and java fern for example that do not require their rhizomes ("roots"/stem) buried - in fact, if you do bury them, they may die - instead it is best to secure them loosely to driftwood or rock using fishing line.