# Tetras are dying...help?



## DLM (Jun 27, 2008)

A couple of weeks ago I got rid of all my african cichlids and turned my tank into a planted/tetra tank. The penguin tetras have been in the tank for almost two weeks, the neons for almost one. Over the last 3 or 4 days I've lost 10-15 of my 30-35 neons, and 4 or 5 penguins... They all seem very active and eat good, but slowly but surely they are starting to die. 

110 gallon tank
PH = 7-7.2
Nitrates = 0-5ppm
Nitrites = 0ppm
Ammonia = 0ppm
Temp = 76-78 (I just lowered all the heaters to 70...so the tank will end up room temperature, which is around 75)

The hardness is probably the issue....it's in the 22-25 dGH level...which is where my tapwater seems to be.

I've been to every local store around here that sells fish, and NONE of them sell anything to adjust the hardness. Guess I'll have to order it online.

I guess my question is this.....is the hardness level really that important for neons, or is something else killing them off? I need to figure this out soon...


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

How did you acclimate them and are there any signs of disease? I know that neons are 'blackwater fish" and have no hardness in their natural water and need soft, acid water to breed. But I thought they would live in the hard stuff if acclimated slowly enough.

Hardness down is hard. "Water softeners" just exchange one ion for another. The commercial products for fish tend to cause cloudiness (you take the salts out of solution, you get particles). 

The common suggestion is to use Reverse osmosis filtered or rainwater for much (60-90%) of the water. 

But you could also try a hardness down product followed by micron filtration. 

However, you want to make any change slowly enough not to kill more fish.


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## DLM (Jun 27, 2008)

emc7 said:


> How did you acclimate them and are there any signs of disease?




The day I got them I just kept them in their bag for several hours while floating them at the top of the tank....adding small amounts of the tank water at a time. I then netted them out of the bag and they were free. We didn't loose any the first few days...

Thanks for the other advice. I think I'll order some water softener, use just a small amount over several days and see what happens. Hopefully I'll still have some fish left by the time I figure out what's killing them.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

I suspect that your ammonia kit is bad... double check it with an lfs


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## DLM (Jun 27, 2008)

Fishfirst said:


> I suspect that your ammonia kit is bad... double check it with an lfs



Well...I just checked it again and there is definitely a little ammonia present....but not very much. The test kit is fairly new, but I'll get it double checked. 

I'm surprised to see any show up though...the tank has been established for years. I did a 50% water change and cleaned the filters the day I pulled the cichlids out....and I added some flourite to the substrate where I put the plants. I did remove a lot of large rock from the tank though...so that could have screwed up some of the bacteria colonies. I'll keep a close eye on it and see if I'm just dealing with cycling issues.


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## tiffsplaties88 (Jun 26, 2008)

sorry not a good answer or a solution... but i've always had problems keeping neon tetras alive... they seem to be very touchy fish..


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## gil_ong (Apr 15, 2008)

yes, i have been told by more than one person that neon tetras are very delicate fish. my lot of 10 bought the farm after a bout with finrot.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I've heard that neons don't travel well and the ones coming in from Asia carry a lot of disease. I'm told there is a ready market for local bred, becasue the stores are sick of large losses.

I would suggest looking into tetra from harder water, like Mexico or central america.


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## Guest (Jul 7, 2008)

I wouldn't try to adjust the hardness. Your pH is good, even if your water is hard. Most fish tend to adapt and screwing with the hardness/pH can cause issues sometimes.

Neons are a weak fish these days, probably from inbreeding and over breeding of them. 

I bet you are getting a mini-cycle from taking out the rocks. It doesn't look like you have alot of ammonia, but I would continue to check it for the next week (and nitrItes too) just to be sure.

If hardness were the issue I would think that they would have died soon after being introduced to the tank, but I'm not certain.


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

one thing that is certain... neons and penguin tetras cannot tolerate much ammonia.


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## jones57742 (Sep 8, 2007)

DLM said:


> The hardness is probably the issue....it's in the 22-25 dGH level...which is where my tapwater seems to be.
> I've been to every local store around here that sells fish, and NONE of them sell anything to adjust the hardness. Guess I'll have to order it online.


DLM: I am not familiar with any product which will lower hardness other than the portion due to Ca.

RO/DI water is my method for hardness reduction.

I am interested as to the Kh of your water.




DLM said:


> I guess my question is this.....is the hardness level really that important for neons, or is something else killing them off? I need to figure this out soon...


Welcome to the club!

I have never had good luck adding Neon's or Glowlight's directly to my 110G tank but I had no problem with Red Serpae Phantom's.

Generally out of 7 Neon's and 7 Glowlight's only 1 or 2 would survive and I gave up after the 2nd try.

I now have 7 of each, which are young juvies, in 5G tanks growing them out as well as acclimatizing (refer to EMC's post also) them to the water in the main tank. So far so good as no deaths yet after four weeks.

TR


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## Good Wolf (Mar 5, 2008)

When I set up my first tank I used four neons to cycle (NEWB!), and three tanks transfers later they are still alive. I've lost 3 Cardinals out of around 20 and they were from an LFS that is notorious for having bad stock. They were the only ones that had them in stock at the time so I took a gamble and lost. 

I have five schools of Tetra(neon, cardinal, phatom, serpae, and black neon) and so far I've only lost the 3Cardinals, 1 Phantom, and one black after several months. My water is about as hard as it gets but I buy locally so I assume the LFS has the same hardness as me since most of them do not use RO water.


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## DLM (Jun 27, 2008)

I'm not sure where the neons I bought came from. I ordered them from the LFS....and picked them up the day he recieved them. They never came out of the bag they were shipped in until they were at my house.

I'm having better luck with neons in my 12 gallon office tank. I still have 5 out of the 6 I bought at Petsmart a month or so ago. Hardness is pretty much the same here as it is at home. Guess I could have been shipped a sick batch of neons....

I was able to order them for $1.20 each vs. the $2.49 Petsmart wants to charge. Maybe there's a good reason...


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## DLM (Jun 27, 2008)

jones57742 said:


> I am interested as to the Kh of your water.
> 
> 
> TR




I'll check that tonight and post up...as well as ammonia and nitrite levels.


EDIT: Just realized I don't have a kH test kit....just the generatl gH. I'll see if the LFS can test it for me, or buy a kH kit this week.


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## DLM (Jun 27, 2008)

Lost at least 3 more today while I was home... This is really pissing me off. I guess I should have stuck with cichlids.  Ammonia and nitrite levels were zero today. The penguins are still doing pretty good, the mystery snails are nice and healthy....the neons are dying by the minute. 

I took this video tonight. This is what they do right before they die. This one was dead minutes later. 

http://www.roadrashed.com/Aquarium pictures/tropical build/07Jul08 dying neon.wmv

Pic of the same fish:










I went ahead and added some carbon to one of my Magnums tonight...just to see if it would remove any impurities I can't test for. Just grasping for something at this point....


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

neon tetras have been kept successfully in aquaria without any special water adjustments for more years than any of us has been alive.if all of your parameters are as you say they are;then there is something else affecting your fish.
could be gill flukes;could be an internal parasite;could be something else..i don't know that much about fish so all of this is just opinion.


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## AFGirlJen (Jul 8, 2008)

*Oscar Fish Free to good home.*

I have no idea if this is the right place to post this, but I have a 4 1/2- 5 yo Oscar Tiger fish that I can no longer care for. I live in Roswell and I am willing to bring him and his tank to his new home. If anyone is interested my email address is [email protected].
Thanks,
Jennifer


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## trashion (Aug 24, 2007)

Jennifer, you'd be better off posting a new post.


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## COM (Mar 15, 2008)

Neon tetras have successfully been kept for years and years.

I am not a keeper who has ever been successful with them. I find them quite delicate, for no particular reason.

I have always found Cardinal tetras much easier to keep.


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## DLM (Jun 27, 2008)

COM said:


> Neon tetras have successfully been kept for years and years.
> 
> I am not a keeper who has ever been successful with them. I find them quite delicate, for no particular reason.
> 
> *I have always found Cardinal tetras much easier to keep*.




When (and with the way things are going I'm not going to use "if") the neons all go...I'll try a few cardinals to see how they do. This royally sucks. In all my years of having aquariums I have never lost this many fish so quickly. I'm really wondering if the driftwood is poisioning them somehow....but then again, everything else in the tank is doing fine.


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## Good Wolf (Mar 5, 2008)

I've had more Cardinals die than Neons but again I think the Cardinals dying was due to the LFS I got them from. 

In general they are more hardy, and they are a lot more colorful which does make them more expensive. 

My Neons school with my Cardinals so I never bothered getting more Neons. I think I have around 15-20 Cardinals and 4 Neons now. O' btw Cardinals can get pretty darn big. My brother has some that are over an inch and pretty fat.


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## COM (Mar 15, 2008)

If you suspect the driftwood is poisoning the fish somehow ( I have no idea how that could be, but whatever) try taking it out and see if more fish die.

Run some charcoal in the filter to remove junk from the driftwood. It will remove nutrients for your plants, but if you have that many fish dying, who cares about the plants?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

The video looked like the fish was suffocating. Go with loh and look into gill flukes. If the neons brought you a disease, anything you put in the tank may die.


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