input wanted on a neon tetra matter

[xdanxnjx]

hello all

so, i have eight neons in a very stable community tank. have had them all for about 1 year. water parameters all good...great in fact. i have ONE of the neons that has almost completely lost its red coloring. it's almost white at this point. has worsened slightly since i first noticed it about a month ago. he is behaving completely normally, including eating, and none of the others are affected. i have ruled out neon tetra disease because it's just been way too long for it to suddenly manifest itself. my theory as it stands is he is probably of old age. anyone else ever have something like this happen?

greatly appreciate any input. thank you.

[genocidex]

not sure of the specifically neons but loss of color is generally associated to stress of some sort

[mizzoutank]

+1 to the above.

color changes that i've experienced are due to stress/fluxuations in water params/temps.

what's the other stock and size of your tank?

[xdanxnjx]

i've got a dwarf gourami, some harley rasbora, black neons, ghost shrimp, and a couple julii corys...these fish have all been together for about a year. the water parameters have never changed. i just do not see what would be stressing out one fish of a school and none of the others. and again, he is just as happy go lucky as my other neons. no change in behavior whatsoever.

[rodm81]

I've never seen it posted here before, but when i kept my neon tetras (15 of them) I saw a sort of pecking order amongst them. My larger tetra would chase some of others around. It was not a constant thing. I thought they were sort of playing since i have never read any posts of them fighting amonst themselves. So just maybe its a inhouse type of fighting going on. Just thought i'd share that.

[genocidex]

has any of your parameters changed abruptly? ie ph, temp, nitrates, nitrite, ammonia, chlorine/chlorimine?

[xdanxnjx]

nope. nothing has changed. my water is very consistent and i am a water change nazi haha. crystal clear at all times and tests always better than acceptable. my guys don't really have much of a pecking order, which is kind of an anomaly because i know most neons have that pecking order thing. this is why i'm leaning toward old age as the cause. i saw some posts elsewhere where someone suggested that. hopefully maybe someone has had this specific thing happen. genocidex, did any of your neons low in the pecking order discolor?

has any of your parameters changed abruptly? ie ph, temp, nitrates, nitrite, ammonia, chlorine/chlorimine?

[genocidex]

1 yr isnt that old for neons, unless you got an oldy. what are you feeding them? keep an eye on that gourami, even the dwarfs can take advantage of slower fish... other than that i cant think of much else. ive seen lately more water supply companies switch from chlorine to chloromines, with out notice to customers. actually happened to me, luckly the dechlorinator i used can break the bond and detox it, but my mom's bf aged his water.... lost all his fish over the course of a month. but seeing how its only one fish, i doubt it...

[xdanxnjx]

it could have been an old one. you never know. over a million tetras are sent to us in the US every month haha. i feed high quality tropical flakes, crushed up tropical pellets, frozen blood worms, freeze dried tubifex worms, frozen brine shrimp, and sinking shrimp pellets for the bottom feeders which the neons hang around to get the scraps that fly up from them. chloramines and chlorine are both taken care of by prime i believe. my gourami is pretty laid back. he actually only harasses the corys and tries to steal their pellets. that's the only aggressive thing that happens in my tank. i guess i'll keep up observing and researching and report back on it.thank you for the brainstorming though!

1 yr isnt that old for neons, unless you got an oldy. what are you feeding them? keep an eye on that gourami, even the dwarfs can take advantage of slower fish... other than that i cant think of much else. ive seen lately more water supply companies switch from chlorine to chloromines, with out notice to customers. actually happened to me, luckly the dechlorinator i used can break the bond and detox it, but my mom's bf aged his water.... lost all his fish over the course of a month. but seeing how its only one fish, i doubt it...

[mommy1]

Is the neon consistently pale or just sometimes? All the neons I have ever had lose color to some degree when the lights are out and slowly color back up when the lights come back on.