So I think its official, some force does not want me to keep fish! Over the past few months my tank has gone through a school of 8 Cherry Barbs who got a case of reocurring ich and killed them off 1 or 2 at a time. Went through a couple of oto cats. And as of late I've kept a school of 15 neon tetras in my 20 gallon. At first 6 of them died mystery deaths so I bought 6 more to replace them a couple weeks ago. Over the last couple weeks one died after going on for a week and a half or so with his tail completely bitten off and also within the last two weeks 5 others have died mysteriously. My water params are fine the fish are acting normal and have good color. i don't know whats going on, I'm definitely on the verge of giving up and just draining it if i go through the last 9 of these guys.
What other fish are you keeping in there or are the neons the only species right now? I also agree with cody take a look at the thread and post the answers to the questions in the first post, also take a look at the disease thread http://www.fishforum.com/tropical-fish-diseases/freshwater-saltwater-diseases-8179/ and see if anything matches up with your problem, the more information we can get the quicker we can get to the bottom of it.
Also don't give up just yet getting into this hobby can take some time
Good luck =D
I've done a lot of reading around the forums as well as other posts on neons. Neons are the only thing I have in the tank aside from MTS and two ghost shrimp. They all swim around/school around together aside from time to time they all break apart and do their own thing before grouping up. They seem to act perfectly normal all the time. Except for the last 6 and one a day the last couple weeks who have been stuck to the filter intake..I have 9 left all of which display perfectly good color and behaviour to my knowledge.
Oh and for the questionaire;
1. 20 Gallon Tank
2. Freshwater
3. Around 6 months or so.
4. 9 Neon Tetras / 2 Ghost Shrimp / Countless Malaysian Trumpet Snails
5. Yes; I have Anachris, Java Moss, Java Fern, Anubias nana
6. 78 degrees F
7. Stock Filter that came with it. I think its a Tetra Whisper 20 filter
8. No
9. No natural sunlight received.
10. This past monday a 20% change
11. 20% water changes done once a week
12. Once a day; Aqueon flake food, fish get ahold of algae wafers that are for shrimp sometimes. and freeze dried bloodworms from time to time.
13. 15W Flourescent tube. 10-11 hours a day.
14. Random fish deaths despite looking perfectly healthy.
15. Ammonia - 0 Nitrite - 0 Nitrate - Around 10
16. API Freshwater Master Liquid test kit
17. Bought fish maybe 2 and a half weeks ago. In the tank it was a huge wall of neon tetras. All seemed to be in the school swimming back and forth in the tank.
The tank info you provide says to me there is nothing wrong with respect to the water, so I would look to the fish themselves. In your first post you mention one neon with his tail bitten off. Have you noticed any of the other dead neons with the same, no tail? And did you happen to observe the tail gradually disappearing (over a couple of days)? Or any other similar traits on the dead fish, like white blotches?
It could be your water becauese in the town by mine the water is a fish death sentence.or you could look to the suplier like walwart they kill more fish than they sell some petsmarts aret very reliable eather
Yeah I've gotten all of my fish at Petsmart. and Byron yes the tail was gone in chunks it seemed over the course of a few days. I have my original core group of 9 neons and they seem to be doing great but i hope i'm not speaking too soon at this point. All of the other neons that have died to my knowledge were perfectly healthy looking, no white splotches of any kind etc.
I've had problems with the neon group (cardinals, false neons), just curious. Keep monitoring the neons. It's difficult to diagnose things. The tail doesn't sound like another fish biting it off, more like a disease; I recently lost a pencilfish the same, no idea what it was or where it came from other than with the particular fish (it was new). Nothing else has developed the same thing.
Alright i'll do my best to keep my eyes on them and let ya know if i see anything wrong with any. I generally watch them for awhile as they eat everyday. All of em seem fine and some are even willing to come up and eat blood worms out of my fingers. One of them has a noticeably larger belly than the rest. But he/she isn't lazy or anything seeming out of the ordinary..swims with the rest and swims often.
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