Strange Neon Tetra behavior

[dolem98]

Hi, my Dad has reported to me that three of his seven neon tetras are acting strange. They are swimming upright at a 90 degree angle, and going up and down. I had him check for any other symptoms of disease, white spots, fin rot, etc, but he did not see anything.

Does anyone know what this means?

[NJ Devils Fan]

What are your water parameters and what size tank do you have.(;) MFish)

[dolem98]

It's a 10 gallon planted tank. I don't know the water paramaters, and don't have easy access to them.

[NJ Devils Fan]

Well that could be a problem for us to diagnose your problem. :(

BTW, Welcome to Aquaria Central

[dolem98]

Which water paramaters would you be most interested in? Temperature, ph, nitrate levels?

[vtfish]

Is your tank have filtration or anything that would encourage oxygen exchange into the water? It sounds like they need air.
-vt fish

[Slappy*McFish]

Mine do that after they eat..I think they just gulp too much air when they grab the flakes from the surface(they swim upright w/heads pointed down and seem to be trying to swim down while floating back to the surface)...they usually swim normally after a few hours.

[ArkyLady]

I was going to post about this same problem with my neons. They just started doing this tonite as far as I know. I've never noticed it before and I've been watching the tank closely since I recently removed some sick fish from this tank. My first thought was NTD, but I've read up on that and it doesn't appear to be what's wrong.

Is this a common thing with neons? I have glowlights in the same tank and none of them are doing the bobbing up and down dance, but most of the neons are (about 9 out of 16). Is there anything else I should be looking out for? Water parameters are all fine.

[Sumpin'fishy]

I just had a Neon die after about 5 days or so of vertical swimming. It was head up, though! I thought of too much air in the swim bladder, too, but I'm not sure this was the case here.

It seemed to eat and have appetite up until I saw it laying almost motionless on the floor of the tank. I fished it out and disposed of it. It wasn't quite dead yet, but I figured I'd put it out of it's misery. It seemed to be completely fatigued!

No problems with the other Neons.