My Tetra seems to be dying

Neons are really picky on water. I would take him out and see whats wrong. Mean while keep a eye on the levels in the cycling tank. And do 50% daily water changes.

Who suggested that you cycle with Neons?

Sorry but they are probably the worst fish you can use to cycle a tank.

They are far too fragile to handle the toxic conditions that a cycling tank produce.

To make matters worse if you decide to treat the ich (which you should) you should really only treat with half doses. Tetras tend not to do well with most ich meds. Especially copper based and malachite green ones. Tetras also tend to not do so well with salt either unless it is at very low levels. Which from a treatment stand point is not very helpful.

Leave the sick one in the tank. Even if it dies it will take a while before the corpse will start to cause any ammonia spikes. It has to start to rot before that will happen. Pump up the temp of the tank 80 -82 degrees. That will help the fish along with the ich. (speeds up the ich life cycle)

Next since the neons are stressing already you will want to keep up regular water changes. Yes it will force your cycle to take longer but with weaker fish like neons at very least they will come out of it fairly unscathed.

One other thing that you can try is ask someone who you know or even your lfs for a piece of filter floss from one of their established systems. Then plug that into your filter. A fair sized piece should give the cycle a very big boost and will also help you avoid any big ammoina or nitrite spikes. You should get a hazy bloom if it works and the cycle will be complete in about a week.

If you go with the floss method the water changes should only be done when the water tests warrant it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with cycling with fish. You just have to use the right kind of fish. Fishless is fine too. I personally don't do it but hey to each his/her own.

tornangel012 said:

well I've had an established filter that I've added into my tank along with my new one. The established one was only for 3 gals though so now I have the power to go trhough 23 gals in my 10 gal. I also put in the old gravel and water from the established tank into the new 10 gal. It's been up for about two weeks now.

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Are you testing the levels in the tank?

It is really rare (at least in my experiences) that tanks that have been given sufficate bacteria beds (gravel, filters) don't cycle at light speed. By light speed I mean a week to two weeks. Even a three gallon should have enough bacteria to give a 10 gallon a good head start.

As long as the bacteria is there and they are given a food source (the fish) the bacteria should multiply like crazy with minimal fluctuations assuming that you don't over stock the tank to start.

As for the ich. The water changes are good with a vaccum gravel to pick up any extra nasties that might be in the tomite stage. Just make sure to rinse the syphon well under hot water afterwards to kill anything that might be clinging on. This should also be done for any other tools you use. (Nets, etc..) Doing this will avoid any accidental tranfering of the ich if there are other tanks around.

You might want to go with a med to help along with the temp raise. I personally like formalin. Only because you can use it in regular dose. Formalin is also the main ingredient in Quick Cure which works well. It also has malachite green though so you would have to go half dose there as well. Quick cure will solve the problem though. Plus it might be easier to find than straight formalin.