Ntd Death :(

[Mr Bee]

Hi, I have had 6 neons and 6 glowlights living together for a good few months now. Yesterday when feeding, I noticed only 5 neons came up to eat. After about half an hour of searching, moving decor around, even looking in the filter I found the other neon on the bottom of the tank, nearly lodged under the airstone.

Anyway, long story short, it looked to me like NTD - faded colouring, and the trademark corrugated look and bent shape on the side. The fish was still alive - barely - as its gills were going, but it couldn't swim or move itself. So I decided to remove it and put it out of its misery by chilling.

RIP my little neon


Anyway, I have read that if one has got it, then you can take it that all the rest will already have it too - so can I expect them all to die from this over time? How long does it generally take to affect and kill fish?

I've also read that some tetras are immune to NTD, like Cardinals - but what about my Glowlights, are they gonna get infected too, or are they also immune to it?


Thanks in advance

 

[Lateral Line]

Neon Tetra Disease is a total misnomer. Many speacies, including non characins can be indected by sporozoan parasites. Sporozoans live in the muscle of fish, and grow slowly. When large enough, you can see them through the skin, this is the pale patches you see. As they grow further, they start to warp the spine. Death usually occurs when the fish is unable to swim after food.

The key issue here is that these things do not suddenly happen, it can take months to develop. If the fish has been fine until very recently and suddenly gone pale and bent, that does not sound like NTD.

 

[oakes]

Hello, sorry to hear about the little neon. I hope you don't mind this off topic comment, but i feel that there are better methods to euthanase a fish than using the freezer which would be a more painful asphyxiation than if you just left it at room temperature. Not that i recommend doing that either, there are more humane methods, and whilst i have not searched this site i'm sure the topic would have been discussed in other threads.

 

[Lateral Line]

There is a pinned topic here concerning euthenasia.