neon tetras

M

Marion

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Jan 31, 2003
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Hi & Help, we added 7 neon tetras to our tank the PH remains 7.8. The fish
were added this past Thurs 4/03. Saturday night we came home & found
4 of the tetras had died, Sunday night we lost a 5th. Is our pH too high to
keep this fish in our tank. I don't want to breed them we just keep them in
the tank. The amonia & nitrite are both 0. The other fish are fine.
5 male guppies
2 sunburst playties
7 zebra danio
3 head & tail lights
4 silver tetras
2 plecostmus
 
Neon tetras are notoriusly sensitive fish to changes in water quality, and will succumb to stress quite easily. Had they been showing signs of stress before they died? You can keep neon tetras at that pH (that's about the pH around here, and my LFSs have never had trouble keeping them at that pH), but the problem lies mostly in changes in pH. Are there any differences between the water in your tank and the water at the store? If so, how did you acclimate the fish? And how long has the tank been running? Neons usually need an established tank to thrive.

You may well have just gotten a bad batch of them, if you decide to try again, remember to acclimate them slowly and carefully to your tank water to reduce stress, and you should be all right.

HTH
 
Yea, the ph was too high for them, it should be around 6.6-6.8 for neons, but of course they are fine in 7.2ish. I would try to bring it down using peat in the filter, but not too much, like to around 7.0.
 
Neons will be fine in 7.8. They will not breed, but their health will not be compromised IME.
 
Just repling to the responses to my tetra problem. Yes the tank is now
about 4 1/2 monthes old. I acclimated them the way I do all fish:
letting the bag float in the tank for 15 minutes then adding some tank
water & letting the fish float in bag with added water for another 15
minutes then release them (not with the water from the bag). How do I
lower PH with peat filtration?
 
Neon tetras will do fine in water with that pH and is sounds like your efforts to acclimate them was fine.

IME, neons are not very hardy fish, esp. the wild-caught variety. They seem to succumb pretty easily to disease and stress-related problems. Usually if they make it a week or two in your tank, they'll be OK. Back when I bought wild-caught neons, I would regularly experience 50% loss within the first week. There are some available now that are purportedly farmed in Florida that seem to be much healthier and hardier. I can bring home a batch of them with no losses in the first few weeks. Worth asking about...

Your water is fine. That's not the problem, I think. Healthy stock is the issue here...

Jim
 
Hi Marion,

Sorry you had trouble with your neons. I have kept them ever since I was a kid and have much experience with them as they are one of my all time favs.

Neons are beautiful and ultimately very sturdy fish once they are established.

They are however weak in transport and subject to shock resulting from changes in water parameters and quality.

So I am going to agree with the posters that recommend a protracted acclimation process.

My advice would be take at least an hour to slowly replace small amounts of the bag water with aquarium water. try scooping an equal amount out of the bag and then placing same amount from the aquarium in the bag. That way you can track the process with ease.

Personally, I would take no less than an hour to do this. Ideally I would take 2.

The issue of water values is debatable. I know that posters here have written that your PH of 7.8 is acceptable for neons.

I am going to respectfully disagree and suggest this is a high PH for the neons and indeed all the tetras in your aquarium.

To strike a balance between your high ph/hard water loving live bearing fish and your softwater low ph loving tetras, I would shoot for 7.0 to 7.2 as NJ Devil suggests..

This is an acceptable compromise for all the fish in your setup.

I am assuming since your PH is 7.8 that your water is on the hard side and depending on how hard it is, this could pose a long term problem for the neons..but a "wait and see" approach could address that....

I would also emphasize that if you have a new aquarium, I would let it establish its cycles for a few months before adding neons.

As to the idea you may have gotten a "bad batch", this could very well be true as so many of the neons you see these days are visibly weak in the holding tanks.

I read an article on the internet [can't vouch for its veracity but it seemed to make sense] that the majority of neons come from Hong Kong where [this author alleges] they are fed hormones to bring them up to saleable size as quickly as possible. This has a destructive effect on the fishes immune system and thus weakens it considerably.

This rings true for me because I know from experience raising neon fry that they take quite a while to start "looking like neons"

I would get your pH down to 7.0 or 7.2 watch the water values and don't forget those regular water changes of whatever percentage.

Aqua
 
I have to respectfully disagree.

I agree that pH of 7.8 is not ideal. However, I would prefer to see a constant pH of 7.8, especially in the case of a newbie.

The reasons are as follows:

(1) Lowering pH is bloody hard work. I have had "liquid rock" in the past and you just can't do a thing about it, apart from tarting around with RO. This brings me on to point (2)

(2) If you're going to tart around with RO/DI water to bring it down, you have to be very careful with your amounts to get exactly the same pH every time. And what if the tap water varies? You may end up being more of a chemist than a fishkeeper. I'm not saying RO/DI is a bad way to go, but it's not the best way of enjoying one's fish as a newbie. And finally, what if a massive water change is suddenly required for some reason? RO/DI needs a lot of planning and forethought, and we are on the newbie forum here.

(3) Other options for lowering the pH are "pH down" type products. As we all know, in well-buffered water like this probably is, this is going to lead to a series of pH bounces. This cycling of pH will be far worse for the neons than a pH of 7.8. "Water Softener Pillows" are worse than useless because they actually raise TDS by exchanging Ca++/Mg++ for two Na+.

(4) I (and many other people) have successfully kept neons in pH much higher than this - 8.4 in my case. Sure, the fish didn't breed, but their health was fine. John Dawes' book agrees, and if it's good enough for him...

All in all, for an experienced fishkeeper willing to experiment, trying to lower the pH to keep neons is a worthwhile project. I do not, however, think it's the best introduction to fishkeeping.
 
I think people would do better to keep fish that prefer their water parameters, than to try to get the water parameters to match the fish. If your water is alkaline, try to keep fish that actually prefer alkaline water, and most of your problems will be solved.
 
I'm with Faramir on this one. Certainly in the wild neons do not have hard water/high pH. But in captivity they will live well and long in it. I don't have any right now, but have kept schools with average life over 5 years in my GH 9, KH 7 pH 7.6-7.8 water.

Adjusting your water parameters artificially is IMHO & IME a great deal of hassle and far more likely to cause problems than reduce them. Stability is much, much more important.

I also would not buy neons without knowing their source. If the store does not know, leave them. SE Asian bred and forced neons are asking for trouble.
 
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