lyndatu

Hello, there!

I just got home from work today and I found that my school of seven neon tetras is missing one member. I saw on the powerhead the corpse of the tetra, who must have died and got sucked to the intake. The neon should not have died because he got sucked into the powerhead as its body is too large to enter the blade chamber through the intake tube. So I bought another tetra from the store and put it on the tank. It schooled with the six others immediately, but I noticed that the new tetra from the LFS has brighter colors than my six tetras, who are pale in color. The new tetra is also picking on few of the other tetras, which might be a sign that the other tetras are too weak to fight for their position in the pecking order. I'm worried, so I thought of theories on why the tetras are pale:

1. The six original tetras might have settled and felt comfortable in their home, as they have been in my tank for almost 9 months. Therefore they might be relaxed that they do not show off their colors too much.

2. The fish foods I've been giving them must have ran out of nutrients. My fish foods have been inside my aquarium cabinet for 4 - 8 months. It was just now that I realized about the fish food "expiry date" of 4 - 6 months, and that they should be refrigerated to help prolong shelf life. Since my fish food has no nutrients left in them, my neons aren't really getting the proper nutrition. Also, one of the fish food I have must have been in the store for many months, so when I bought them a few months ago, they might have already expired.

3. They got stressed out and got sick. I've been doing a lot of aquascaping changes lately, and it must have really stressed them out as I've rearranged the decorations while they're still in the tank. I've finally settled to my aquascape, but the fish might feel tired of all the changes I've done.

Which of these theories are true? Do you have another theory? Please let me hear it so I can help my fishes.......My other fishes(a honey gourami and and albino pleco)look healthy, but not the tetras. I should definitely get some fresh fish food. Can you formulate the cause and suggest a solution? Sorry for the long post....

Thanks in advance!

Lucy

A relaxed healthy neon will show it's colors, not be paled by their surroundings.
It's quite possible the expired food has something to do with that.
The new neon is probably nipping to establish his place in the school, it should work out on it's own.
Since you've changed things around, have you kept an eye on your water parameters?

agabr123

do you have water parameters?

i'd try feeding them some fresh live foods if you can, here's a link on how to make lots of different live foods. and if you cant, then frozen foods would work, bloodworms, daphnia, baby brine shrimp, that sort of thing. that should help a lot with what they may be lacking in nutrition.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/fi...food-fish.html

lyndatu

Thank you for the replies, everyone!

I again examined the neons and they're all colorful and shiny again. I was curious on what happened that caused them to become happy again. The water parameters are fine. They must have been pale yesterday because they haven't got much sleep that time(I forgot to turn off the lights on time). Sorry for my sudden worrying....... but I did replace my old fish food with fresh ones as I want my fish to be healthy.

Thanks again!

Lucy

I'm glad they're looking better today.

agabr123

also, a lot of times neons will look pale in the morning immediately after you turn the lights on, but their colors will come back throughout the day, so if you notice them pale around those times, you don't need to be too concerned