Help: Neon Tetra Not Well

for several days, one of my neon tetras has been showing symptoms of sickness. not eating, staying in a corner, no interest in food. I assumed he was sick, and placed him in a pre-medicated tank. I put him into shock (huge mistake on my part) but managed to bring him back with a lot of stress coat. he's recovered from the shock, and I currently have him in a cup. I'm not sure what to do. there's a chance he may not even be sick, just stressed. I know this whole thing happened because I slacked off on water changes. I'm now doing regular water changes, and have carbon in my filter. all the other fish are fine, just this neon tetra. I'm not sure what to do, if I should put him into the pre-medicated tank via lengthy drip acclimation (I don't want to risk putting him into shock again), put him back in the main tank and see what happens, or treat him separately from the pre-medicated tank. I'm going on a 10 day trip in 3 days, so I'm pressed for time. any advice will be appreciated. I don't want to lose him.

 

I would drip acclimate him and put him in the medicated tank, as long as its cycled. You don't want to run the risk of him dying in your main tank and causing an ammonia spike while you're gone. Reduce his stress by making sure the medicated tank has a stable temp and a place to hide.

 

ok thank you. hopefully, he will make it. he's still a little phased out, so I'll put him in tomorrow morning

 

ok thank you. hopefully, he will make it. he's still a little phased out, so I'll put him in tomorrow morning

No problem, wishing you good luck!
Keeping him in a cup overnight doesn't seem like a great idea. Ammonia can build up fast, as there's no filter with bacteria to convert it to nitrates. And without surface agitation he might run out of oxygen. And I'm sure the cup doesn't have a heater to keep the water at temp...

 

unfortunately, the fish who was in the medicated tank didn't make it (parasite). I cleaned out the medicated tank and put the tetras' tank water in it and put him in it. definitely a lot less stress on him. I'll put the medicine tomorrow morning. I don't want to stress him out further while he's adjusting to the new environment. I'm mainly worried about his food. I don't want the pet sitter to feed him while he's still sick because he simply won't eat it and it will become ammonia, but he's already gone a couple days w/o food, and 10 more will push it. I guess only time will tell. hopefully, he will be in a better state by Friday

UNRELATE:::: this is going to sound odd, but do fish meds only work once on an individual fish? I had this happen to 2 guppies. I successfully treated them, then later on in their life they got sick, but the meds had zero effect. does this correlate to old age, or do meds only work once, like the fish develop some sort of immunity somehow? or is it just bad genetics?

 

I recently learned this from another user: if you happen to have a spare turkey baster you don't need anymore, or can pick one up, have your pet sitter feed and then if the fish doesn't eat it in a few minutes, just suck it up with the baster. That way, no leftover food.

If the particular condition was completely eradicated, they should work again. There are a lot of possibilities here:
*Some microorganisms (and I've heard parasites but not from full proof sources so I'm not sure) can become resistant to medications. Bacteria is the most well-known example. So a fish had a bacterial infection and was given an antibiotic medication that knocked out 99.9% of the bacteria, let's say, but that .1% became genetically resistant to the antibiotic. That fish might appear to get better because most of the bacteria was killed off and the infection symptoms began to subside, but .1% of that bacteria survived. Now that .1% is reproducing, the fish may soon become noticeably infected again, and this time all of the bacteria has that gene that allowed it to be resistant to the medication.
*Alternatively: Let's say a fish is infected with anything: fungus, bacteria, whatever. You're treating with a medication. Then the fish's symptoms improve. You think the fish is better, so you stop treatment. If the full recommended dose wasn't given, there could still be some living infectious organisms infecting the fish, which will multiply again over time. These are also going to be the last few of the organisms that were able to live despite the medication's presence, so they're going to be more resistant to the medication as well.
*Other possibility: the wrong medication is being used. Just like human medications, there are different formulas used to treat different things. And illnesses can be hard to tell apart in fish.
* Definitely the immune system of most living things are negatively affected by age. That's certainly a possibility.
* Definitely a lot of fish that are popular in the aquarium hobby have been bred under poor conditions or bred for traits that have left them genetically vulnerable. Neon tetras are kind of known for this too.
So, there are a lot of factors. It can be a little frustrating trying to figure out what's going on with your fish. I can't imagine how they did it before the internet. haha

 

wow, there should be a collective article on that.

for feeding, I'm putting the desired amount of food in small ziplock bags, 1 bag per day

 

I’m assuming the bagged food is for your main tank. The lone tetra should only need a couple flakes. If you don’t have a baster, you could also just have her fish uneaten food out with a net. Just might want to decontaminate your net when you get back before using it in the main tank.

Normally fish can do pretty okay without food for 10 days. I just think when a fish is sick, unless they have constipation or something, it’s better to keep their strength up if you can.

 

I put in the meds today. he's not looking any worse then he was before I separated him

unfortunately, the neon tetra has passed away. thank you so much for all of your input. maybe it was just too little too late. there are no signs of illness in any of the other fish that were in his tank, thankfully