Neon Tetra Disease Vs Inbred/genetic Problems

HI Everyone,

I have a couple questions regarding neon tetra disease compared to inbred fish with bad genetics. I know neon tetras are often overbred and have a bunch of issues. I've been keeping them anyways for a few years and had relatively good success.

About 10 months ago I got 3 new neon tetras. After a couple months they got full grown, so I wasn't able to distinguish them from the others I had. The other fish I've added to the tank since then have all been healthy and are doing great.

About 6 months ago, I noticed one of their fins looked a bit strange. It appeared to have white edges and as if the fins were slightly receding from the edges. It lived, ate, and acted fine for about 4 months. The fins very very very slowly got worse. After about 5 months, the fish started to lose color and get bloated, then it died. I even noticed it had a tiny white ulcer looking thing right before it died. I wasn't able to find it. I think the hundreds of shrimp I have ate it while I was at work. A month later, I noticed another one of the neon tetras got an extremely bent spine. It wasn't squiggly like I see with most neon tetra disease pictures or fish TB, it literally was an "L" shape. The fish had obvious problems swimming, but still ate, had bright colors, and hung with the school when it could keep up. I euthanized it last night just in case it had neon tetra disease or fish TB. It was also sad to see him struggle to swim. It lived like this for a month though, and after the spine was fully bent, it didn't get worse.

I have a hard time thinking it was a contagious disease because both fish showed symptoms, then lived an extremely long time. The first fish was alive for over 5 months after I noticed the problems. The second fish was fine for a month after the "L" shaped spine occurred. I had to euthanize for other reasons.

So my questions.
1. How fast does neon tetra disease affect and kill the host? And how fast does it spread to other fish?
2. Do these two neon tetras in question sound like they had neon tetra disease or just had bad genetics, like so many neon tetras do? I haven't had fish other than neon tetras get sick in years, which makes me think it's probably genetic.
3. If it was a contagious disease, should I worry about my other fish? I have a school of rummynose tetras, pearl danios, panda cories, a dwarf gourami, and a spotted congo puffer in this tank. The puffer and gourami eat the shrimp pretty frequently, which worries me. But they are both healthy and happy at the moment, and have been for months after the first neon tetra died and the shrimp ate it.
4. Any other tips or useful information?

 

I can answer 3. It is contagious and as far as I know there's only one group of fish (not sure which one) that can't get it. david1978 can probably be of more help on that

 

Strangly cardinal tetras are the only ones that haven't gotten it.

 

Strangly cardinal tetras are the only ones that haven't gotten it.

Do you know how long the disease takes to progress?

 

That I don't know. Like most things even with us you don't suspect anything is wrong until its obvious. So its really hard to put a time line on it.

 

Strangly cardinal tetras are the only ones that haven't gotten it.

I highly doubt that to be honest. It is quite unlogical and only to be read in often copy / pasted "articles".

 

I'd be able to help more if the tank was empty, but the only things you can do are extremely harsh and would kill everything. Nuking the tank with copper for example...

 

Think there is a big chance it is false NTD (a neon specific strain of columnaris)

 

It very well could be. Some of the symptoms line up while others don't.

 

NTD is rare, lethal, will kill the entire stock, needs all kind of measurement / desinfection.

 

I concur with DoubleDutch that the article mentioned does not refer to or agree with the scientific literature on the subject so must be regarded as innacurate and of little value.

It has been established by scientific research that the common disease of Neon Tetras today is Columnaris and not the so-called Neon Tetra Disease (Pleistophora) which is rare.

Retailers can lose all their stock and thus this can be a serious economic loss which is one reason why research has been done in this area. More importantly perhaps there are also potential implications for the wider aquaculture industry where much bigger economic losses could be suffered.

The Columnaris affecting Neon Tetras has developed in the fish farms and kills the fish which are kept in crowded conditions, whilst the strains of Columnaris normally found in the environment are not as virulent.

In addition to the speed of the disease being affected by the strain of Columnaris, the condition of the fishes immune system must be taken into consideration and the degree of susceptibility will also vary between individual fish.

I have just lost one of my original Neon Tetras which survived the initial Columnaris that they came with and lived to 3 years and 2 months of age. This fish retained Columnaris on the tail fin all its life with me.

Fish with Columnaris on the gills can be identified by their more rapid breathing. It's also feasible that fish go down with Columnaris as a result of other health issues that may pop up during their lives and make them more susceptible to the disease.

Regarding problems with inbred fish I have had a batch of fish with various physical anomalies and deformities but I have other batches of perfect fish so I expect it will depend on which farm they came from. Wholesalers will not differentiate between these sources. LFSs purchase from these wholesalers.

 

NTD is rare, lethal, will kill the entire stock, needs all kind of measurement / desinfection.

I see. Does NTD kill fish fast? As in they die less than a month after symptoms appears?

I concur with DoubleDutch that the article mentioned does not refer to or agree with the scientific literature on the subject so must be regarded as innacurate and of little value.

It has been established by scientific research that the common disease of Neon Tetras today is Columnaris and not the so-called Neon Tetra Disease (Pleistophora) which is rare.

Retailers can lose all their stock and thus this can be a serious economic loss which is one reason why research has been done in this area. More importantly perhaps there are also potential implications for the wider aquaculture industry where much bigger economic losses could be suffered.

The Columnaris affecting Neon Tetras has developed in the fish farms and kills the fish which are kept in crowded conditions, whilst the strains of Columnaris normally found in the environment are not as virulent.

In addition to the speed of the disease being affected by the strain of Columnaris, the condition of the fishes immune system must be taken into consideration and the degree of susceptibility will also vary between individual fish.

I have just lost one of my original Neon Tetras which survived the initial Columnaris that they came with and lived to 3 years and 2 months of age. This fish retained Columnaris on the tail fin all its life with me.

Fish with Columnaris on the gills can be identified by their more rapid breathing. It's also feasible that fish go down with Columnaris as a result of other health issues that may pop up during their lives and make them more susceptible to the disease.

Regarding problems with inbred fish I have had a batch of fish with various physical anomalies and deformities but I have other batches of perfect fish so I expect it will depend on which farm they came from. Wholesalers will not differentiate between these sources. LFSs purchase from these wholesalers.

Interesting.... I didn't know NTD was so rare. It's written about all over the internet...

Do you know how fast NTD progresses/kills/spreads?

With regards to false neon tetra disease (NT Columnaris), I'm thinking the one that died by itself had that. It looked exactly like these two I'm linking below. Does this look like NT Columnaris to you?

 

Yes it looks like Columnaris to me but it is supposed to be difficult to determine the two diseases with the naked eye:

Journal of Fish Diseases







"Serious and repeated mortality recently experienced in imported neon tetra,Paracheirodon innesi Myers, by French ornamental fish traders and empirically ascribed to the microsporidian Pleistophora hyphessobryconis on the basis of clinical signs, was investigated. Although Pleistophora sp. spores were observed in a few cases, laboratory results demonstrated that similar clinical signs were generally caused by the pathogenic bacterium Flavobacterium columnare. In all cases, muscle was the main target tissue, and the most noticeable external signs were limited to fading of skin colouration and the development of white areas of necrosis."

 

If you know this all, it is funny the initial question only comes up in case of neons (though only given the name cause it was the first fish it was diagnosed in) isn't it hahaha. Not very smart thinking of the scientist who did so.

 

Ya I read it can happen in any fish, but only my neon tetras are the ones getting sick. All of my other fish are healthy and have been for a very long time.

I'm just worried whatever happened to those two neon tetras will happen to my other fish.