sick neon?

[fishn00b]

I added some new stock today so naturally I have been staring at the tank all afternoon. I noticed that one of my neons (neons are not new, roughly 8 days ago I added them) looked different than the rest, the dorsal fin is clamped and his coloration is not as bright as the others. I have noticed some of his "schoolmates" picking on him a little. No other fish is showing any symptoms, parameters seem fine (0/0/<5) so I am wondering what gives? I tried to get a picture of him and the others so you can see the difference.

sick neon.jpg

[Cermet]

Sometimes stock is weak and bacteria that is ok suddenly becomes an issue when a fish is added to a tank (eight days is not long.) Also, ditto on adding new fish with new bacteria can harm exstablished fish. Best to do is nothing for now. Make sure the temp is as high as safe for the neons and other fish. Add an airstone or wand if you have one. Don't add liquid ferts for now and see how it does.

[MandyK]

+1 with Cermet

Neons can be a little tricky when they are first added to a tank. Lots of times you can't help losing one or two. That's just the nature of the beast.

I've added different batches of neons on three different occasions. On the first two I lost may two or three, but on the last one I lost them ALL.... It just depends on the strenght and health of the stock you end up bringing home, and it's pretty easy to stress a neon to the point of death just by moving it from tank to tank.

[Strider199]

If you see that neon really struggling you may want to remove it from the school before it dies. Some time the hard decision needs to be made for the betterment of the whole school. Neons are fickle.

[fishn00b]

I see him just kind of lounging around swimming at a 45 degree angle (head facing downward) but I am noticing the rummynoses are kinda bullying him, I have an empty 10g fully ready to go if you think isolation would help? I don't want to euthanize quite yet as he doesn't seem to have any fungus, just looks mal-nourished.

[Limming]

I would put him in the spare 10 gallon and try and figure it out/cure. If you're able to help it then wait a few weeks then re-introduce it.

[CrunchyLeaf]

I think sometimes we do more harm than good when we start messing with a fish for just looking a little "off" My personal opinion is that the best thing for him is to stay with his school in good quality water and just see what happens. Isolating him by himself in a new environment may just stress him even more.
I would recommend treatment if there was some diagnosable thing, but since we can't narrow it down to a fungus or ick or something specific that's my 2 cents.

However, if you're concerned that he has something that could infect the rest of your stock in this tank it may be best to remove him for the well-being of all the others.

[KevinVA]

+1 to Crunchy

It's a safe bet that once you move that Neon to a new tank, he'll croak. Fish get easily stressed, especially when already sick. If you move him, you'll do him more harm than good. I've experienced this with less finicky fish. At this point, if I ever see a sick fish in my community tank, I'll wait a bit and see if water changes will help stabilize him. Clean water usually equates to healthy fish. If that doesn't help and he's still deteriorating, I'll attempt medication (but will not remove him from the tank, as that will more than likely kill him). It's a safe bet, in my opinion, that if you have one sick fish, you may have others.

Of course, sometimes you need to remove the fish, due to what kind of sickness it might have. If I were to remove one schooling/shoaling fish from the tank, I'd move more than one, so that they still feel safe and are less likely to stress. I did this on my last QT and both fish survived the move. One was too far gone, but the 2nd one is still kicking around and back in the community tank. The medication on the one who died didn't take, but he didn't die from the disease, either. I had to euthanize him via freeze chamber (my freezer). Felt like the humane thing to do. He was pretty bad.

[fishn00b]

I agree with the logic kevin/crunchy, the stress would probably kill it. He does only look a little "off" it's not anything I can diagnose, like fin rot/ick/fungus. And he did show interest in food at feeding time so, maybe he'll snap out of it.

[fishn00b]

Well, so much for that. The neon didn't make it through the mini spike in ammonia I posted about in another thread. I kinda saw that coming, he was only getting worse as the night went on.