# Is it a neon tetra disease?



## Kravcu (9 Jul 2013)

Hi.
Recently I have noticed a white cysts on my neon tetras.
Their behavior is pretty normal, eventually they may be a little bit more sleepy.
Some of them lost their color(from head to the end of dorsal fin).
They are eating normally,There was only one death so far(a.agassizii,probably infected by neon tetras, but he was "depressed", he wasn't eating, and he had problems with swimming(I have strong filtration)).
Cysts showed up about three weeks from buying the fishes.
I have a few H.Amandae in my tank, but they don't have any signs of disease.

Here are a few shots of the cysts:

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http://imgur.com/a/B8ldm
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Am I right that this a neon tetra disease?

Thanks for your help.

@ Sorry for any mistakes, but I'm not a native english speaker.


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## Tomfish (10 Jul 2013)

I don't know if this is the same, but i had similar looking things on some of my cardinal tetras. On closer inspection they appeared to be tiny white parasitic worms, although it was pretty disgusting (not so tiny on a tetras poor little face), they disappeared after about a week or two and i don't think there were any casualties. I scoured the internet, but could not find applicable candidates from lists of common aquarium parasites. I remember getting a good picture. I'll see if i can dig it out, cheers


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## Gill (10 Jul 2013)

From what i remember it does sound like NTD
Another symptom to look out for is a drooping towards to tail from the dorsal onwards.


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## squid102 (10 Jul 2013)

Sorry, I don't seem to able to see the image. 

Do these these white cysts look like grains of salt? In which case it is probably ich. Loss of colour could simply be due to stress and feeling ill because of the ich.


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## DoubleDutch (10 Jul 2013)

Nope this is a well known problem for neons and sometimes cardinals. To my believe it's false NTD caused by a specific Columnaris bacteria. It seems to be species specific and is almost not treatable, but you could give it a try with antibiotics. To my believe it's due to pressure breeding in asia. Greetings Aad. The little worms in cardinals do also ring a bell, but are of a different kind. Surely isn't Ich !


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## DoubleDutch (10 Jul 2013)

FishProfiles.com  - False Neon Tetra Disease (fNTD)


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## aliclarke86 (10 Jul 2013)

I have this on my some of my neons and have tried everything to treat it but nothing has worked. Behaviour is normal and they have lived with it for about a year now.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2


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## squid102 (10 Jul 2013)

Am I the only one that can't see the picture then? You may be right but with a description of "white cysts" it could be one of several possibilities! That's why I asked for clarification.

Columnaris I am very familiar with - it wiped out half my fish about 3 years ago. That was introduced by neon tetras come to think of it but also infected all my platties and some harlequin rasboras. The way I eventually eradicated it (about 3 months) was to quarantine any fish as soon as it developed any symptoms at all. I then gave them regular strong salt dips. It worked for some of them but some were already too ill to save. It tended to kill the tetras quite quickly and I don't remember dipping any of them because they were too far gone.


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## Andy Thurston (10 Jul 2013)

Copy and paste it to your browser


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## squid102 (10 Jul 2013)

I tried putting into my browser yesterday and today but just get "file not found"


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## Kravcu (11 Jul 2013)

I'm not sure if that is ich,because they don't have much spots. If they have it,they have 2-3 on the whole body maximum.
The cysts looks like this:





But ones on my fishes are biger(white spots are the same size,but the base of the cyst is a much bigger).

@Some of my photos:


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## squid102 (11 Jul 2013)

Thanks for posting some more pictures. I can see these ones. Definitely not ich. It does look like it is probably columnaris.

So, from my own encounter with this disease:

It is bacterial and highly infectious. If you can set up a quarantine tank do so and remove all infected fish immediately. It can easily be spread by anything so sterilise equipment whenever you can. You can spread it by hands, nets etc...

If you have access to suitable antibiotics in Poland then they may be worth trying. If not, accept that once a fish is infected you will probably lose them. You can try a strong salt bath once a day. It worked for my platties, provided they weren't already too sick. But it is a risk. I learnt the method from one of the cichlid forums.

The method I used with my platties was to dissolve 1tbsp aquarium salt (1 tablespoon, not 1 teaspoon!) in a small amount of hot water. Then top up to 1 litre with tank water. Net the infected fish and place in the salt water. Keep the fish in the net because timing can be critical! Watch the fish very very carefully. Watch the breathing rate. At some point it will keel over on its side. If you've never used a salt bath before you may want to remove the fish at this point because it is very unnerving! The breathing rate increases and then begins to slow....and slow... And slow...You obviously need to take the fish out before it stops breathing and dies. This only comes with experience. I would never keep a fish in a bath for longer than 5 minutes. I have had smaller fish only last 10 seconds or so before rolling onto their sides. It is risky, although I have never lost a fish doing it.


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