Sick Neons, Please Help

[vrs999]

I have got 10 neon tetra's in my tank. 2-3 look ill. One in particular has stopped shoaling, is breathing very rapidly and his tail looks frayed and a little white, he is just hovering in the same spot. The others that i believe could be ill have either a slight fraying of the tail or the odd little white spot on their body. they may have got a bit stressed the other day after i spent 20 minutes trying to catch a pair of rosy barbs who refused to be caught. I have had 6 of the neons for 3 months and added 4 more a few days ago, up until now they have been healthy. Tank is a rio180 litre, no ammonia, no nitrites, slightest trace of nitrate.

Is this neon tetra disease? should i euthanise the sick looking ones now? Is it something else that is treatable. I dont have a quaranteen tank to issolate them unfortunately. Im getting really worried after reading horror storys about entire tanks being killed off by NTD

Please help!

Cheers
Graham

 

[WILDER]

Sounds like whitespot do the spots look like grains of salt, plus they can heavy breath with parasites, plus finrot is common on top of whitespot.
Ntd signs are that the red stripe looks bleached out, stop shoaling, restless, and have cysts on the belly, later stages, dropsy and popeye as well.

 

[vrs999]

They dont look too bad, i suppose the spots do look like grains of salt. The most poorly of them has gone slightly pale in colour but has not gone silvery, still has its colour, the rest of them all have a nice bright colouring. Ive added some aquarium salt to the water. Havent got any medications as this is my first illness since ive kept fish. What should i do to try and treat them?

Thanks for the very fast reply, its most welcome

 

[WILDER]

Paleness is due to the parasite, get a med fast as whitspot can kill fast, turn temp up to 30 gradually, increase aeration as the high temp and med will reduce 02 in the water.
What other fish do you keep as not all fish can tolerate salt.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=128880

 

[vrs999]

Got platys, mollies, 3 small angels and a female betta. Will get some whitespot med in the morning and will start increasing temp now

 

[WILDER]

Angels can be funny with salt so don't add the full dose only half.

 

[vrs999]

Ahh ok, not added a huge amount so they should be ok i hope. Thanks for the help

 

[vrs999]

After some more advice, lost all but 1 of my neons and the remaining one isnt looking too happy. A few of my other fish have developed spots on their finage but not their bodies. My female betta had what i assume was whitespot but now looks mostly better, the spots she had looked like grains of salt. Now my platies and 1 of my angels have these white patches on their fins but they dont look like grains of salt, they are not raised, etc. They dont seem too unhappy and are feeding, etc. I have been treating for 7 days now with esha exit whitespot med.

Im not sure whether what these fish have is whitespot, any ideas???

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

After some more advice, lost all but 1 of my neons and the remaining one isnt looking too happy. A few of my other fish have developed spots on their finage but not their bodies. My female betta had what i assume was whitespot but now looks mostly better, the spots she had looked like grains of salt. Now my platies and 1 of my angels have these white patches on their fins but they dont look like grains of salt, they are not raised, etc. They dont seem too unhappy and are feeding, etc. I have been treating for 7 days now with esha exit whitespot med.

Im not sure whether what these fish have is whitespot, any ideas???

This is what whitespot/ich should look like;

http/www.fishkeepinguk.co.uk/Images/whitespot.JPG

Neons do not tolerate salt well at all as they are part of the "scaless fish" group, if you have any in the tank i would start doing some small water changes to remove it. What is the temp currently in the tank? Do the white patches on the other fish look anything like this;

http/www.fishpalace.org/columnaris_noodles.jpg

http/www.fishpalace.org/columnaris_elenawong.jpg

?

 

[vrs999]

Yeh the top picture is exactly what my neons had and my betta, my platies and angel dont have raised spots, they dont look like either of those other two photo's.

I'll try and get a picture for you

Thanks

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yeh the top picture is exactly what my neons had and my betta, my platies and angel dont have raised spots, they dont look like either of those other two photo's.

I'll try and get a picture for you

Thanks

For the whitspot, you should be able to get hold of this anti whitespot med;

http/www.thegoldfishbowl.co.uk/images_3_...i_whitespot.jpg

Raise the temp in the tank very slowly to 29degrees(like 1degree a day), this will help speed up the whitespot parasitic cycle as it has 3 main life cycles, only one of which can it be killed by meds(it only has one main visable life cycle, been the white spots themselves, after they start to disapear the meds will start to kill the parasite off, you should put the meds in ASAP though)- things make look worse before they get better.
Continue treament for at least 2weeks after the spots have disapeared, and do not buy any new fish for at least 2 weeks after that- increasing the filter current or raising the filter so it creats lots of bubbles in the water to increase oxygen content will help ease the fish's discomfort too as oxygen doesn't disolve very well in warm water/tropical temps, regular water changes will also help(keeping an eye on the levels of meds in the water though of course), treat the fish normally though other than that although a varied diet will help a lot if you usually only feed them fish flakes .

edit: eh, there's a pinned article with better/more indepth info on whitespot if you want ;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=128879

 

[vrs999]

Hi there, i have been treating them for 7 days with esha exit which was recommended to me at my LFS. Increased temp from 24c to 27c, i'll raise it a bit more over the next couple of days. Have been doing 10% changes every day and have got plenty of circulation and air going thru the water

This is the best picture I could get, as I said the spots dont look raised like grains of salt, they are just blotches

Thanks for the help Tokis-Phoenix

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Glad to help .
Hmm...Its hard to say, could be either a slime coat disorder/excess slime coat production from irretation in the water, columnaris(i think this is less likely though), or velvet. How long ago did this first appear? Do you use "StressCoat" dechlorinator at all?

 

[vrs999]

Yup i use stress coat and stress zyme, i'll keep treating them, ive done a 40% water change tonight too and given the gravel a good clean, got an external filter going now as well as the external so i'll keep an eye on them

Fingers crossed

 

[WILDER]

You can use the bacterial med with whitespot med as well, and with them having bacterial finrot i would use it, as parasites can cause bacterial problems on top.
http/www.aquatics-online.co.uk/listsecti...tp=100&rets=235