# Other Aquarium Forums > Freshwater Fauna >  NTD....

## Achilles

Hi!! I am new here as a member. I am desperately looking for information on Neon Tetra Disease!! So far I have not been able to get past the "destroy all infected fish and disinfect tank" stage...  :Sad:  Can anyone help me with any information?

I have six Neons in a 35 gallon community tank with 3 Zebra Danios, 2 Golden Angelfish (don't worry, they are still quite small), and 1 common Pl*co... pH 7.2, temp steady at 74'F, and nitrates, nitrites, ammonia all below detectable levels on my test strips. I normally do two 20% water changes every week (one every four days or so), and remove the Pl*co "strings" every other day, but I have just returned from 3 weeks of holidays, and the Neons are not well.... My sister took care of them for me. She did only two water changes the whole time I was gone, and probably overfed as well... *sigh*  :Mad: 

At least 2, and maybe as many as four, Neons are showing slightly raised scales along their back. (hard to tell, they always stay among the plastic plants and driftwood a lot..) One male has a very noticeable white patch starting at the base of his tail, and one other looks like it may be starting one as well.. All are still acting, eating normally, and the colors are bright.

Anybody got any advice? I've read that there is a chance it's a bacterial infection.... Should I treat the whole tank for this before I remove the Neons? Are the Danios and the Angels and the Plec at risk of picking this up as well if it is NTD? So far I've received mixed results with that question, as a lot of people are still under the mistaken impression that NTD affects only Neons...

Any help would be gratefully appreciated!!
Thanks, 
L.  :Mad:

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## DEA

NTD is a protozoan disease with the charming name of pleistophora hyphessobryconis
no known cure
best to destroy the fish, and never keep any fish with neon stripes in the tank again
i've seen it infect cardinals, neons, black neons, but never cyprinids, catfish, cichlids, etc
the rest of your fish should be safe, but those 6, you might as well euthanise

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## koon

My cardinal also kena this disease liao.
Every day die 1- 2 fish.
White patches can start from tail, body or head.
Then finish....kaput.

This is my 2nd batch. It's OK for 3 months. My discus, corydora, SAE and Otos all are OK.

So far, does anybody know the exact treatment or has being successfully treated them ?
Rearing cardinal tetra or neon tetra is more difficult than rearing discus !!

 :Sad:   :Sad:   :Sad:

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## David

hi koon the beside the white patch on the dorsal fin, do you noticed any of the following

1. heavy gill flap movement at hanging around the surface
2. locked jaw

if the above is noticed, then you are not having NTD but False NTD aka chilodonella a really external nasty that has the same white patch syptoms plust point 1 and 2. NTD does not knock off fish in 24 to 48hrs...

treatment is if the fish is already hanging near water surface or locked jaw, the fish is best destroyed, salt your tank at 1 to 2 tbsp to 5 gallons of water.

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## koon

Already salt the water as per description 5 days ago but still one by one knock out.
Yesterday add in Interpet 7 (for velvet and slime, it mention about chillonodella).

Still monitoring.

rgds

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## David

eerrh koon....what is your salt dosage now 1 or 2? perhaps you should have considered coppersafe.... :Sad:  ...unless you have snails...then coppersafe may not be such a good idea..

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## koon

~ 1tbsp per 5 gallon.
If not successful, I'm not going to rear tetra anymore.
I still got other fish and plants inside the tank.
Not going to risk anymore medication on other healthy fish and plant.
My plant MM already show sign of withering after the salt bath.
Normally the whole tetra batch last for 2-3 months only.
Rear discus, altum or other cichlid better, very robust.
My discus already &amp;gt; 1yr.

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## loupgarou

nitrite/nitrate levels?

try melafix.

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## David

hey koon

i'm really sorry to hear about your tetras....its really demoralising :Wink:  once had 80 cardinals wiped out in 4 days....30 rasboras in 3 days....due to chilodonella....but hey.. you'll bounce back...i said the same thing as well about not keeping tetras and small fish...but now i have about 30 lemons tetras, 40 rummynose, 20 bleeding hearts, and 35 x-ray tetras :Smile:

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## DEA

i doubt it's salt that's withering your MM
i used 3 x the dosage and MU was perfectly fine with it

what do the white patches look like?
swollen? or simply white INSIDE the body?
if the latter
sorry, but NTD is for all intents and purposes incurable

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## hwchoy

what's an Xray tetra? got pic?

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## DEA

x-ray tetras are like lemon tetras without the black tinge on the caudal fin
very peaceful, hardy species

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## David

hi hwchoy

X-ray tetras are also known as pristella....

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## koon

DEA,

It' white patches with a bit reddish (looks swollen).
The fish will swim in haphazard manner, then hang at the surface after that swim at the bottom, then swim a few backstroke and that's it kaput.

Hei David,

Say don't want to rear tetra out of frustration only.

$30 I can get another 50 cardinal from Gan. I guess it is because it is very cheap and attractive that make us just couldn't give up tetra.

Cao liao !!

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## David

hi koon

...i know the frustration when it happens :Sad:  ...so i tot that some nice encouragement is what we all need sometimes when things dont look so peachy in our tanks.....ooh by the way gan's got new shipment of cardinals just in....looks quite big and healthy.....

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## hwchoy

> ----------------
> On 1/19/2002 9:37:51 PM 
> 
> hi hwchoy
> 
> X-ray tetras are also known as pristella....
> 
> ----------------


Thanx for the pic David. Looks like the Glowlight in shape does it not. Used to have some very big glowlights but gave them away after deciding to focus on Cardinal. But recently visited Gan and cannot tahan the P. simulans. Anyway I convinced myself that this is OK as both of them are found in the same localities in the wild. [: :Smile: ]

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## David

no problems choy ...and yes they look somewhat like the glowlight except for the dorsal fin coloration. :Wink:

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## DEA

koon, do you see your fish with gaping mouths?

david, i remember the name now
pristella maxillaris ^ ^

since when does gan have p. simulans?
and NOOO!!!
p. maxillaris looks NOTHING like the glowlight!!
the pics are showing the younger ones
when they grow old they resemble bleeding hearts

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## hwchoy

> ----------------
> On 1/20/2002 1:45:08 AM 
> 
> david, i remember the name now
> pristella maxillaris ^ ^
> 
> since when does gan have p. simulans?
> and NOOO!!!
> p. maxillaris looks NOTHING like the glowlight!!
> ...


Hey gotta make up your minds before getting me thoroughly confused. Anyway luckily I am restricting myself a just the Paracheirodon sp

Paracheirodon simulans, the green neon [:0] Gan has a ton of them! When I say "cannot tahan" I meant that I bought them  :Smile:  now my tank is probably overcrowded  :Sad:

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## DEA

p. simulans are exactly the same colour as neons, not green
those are p. innesi var.
p. simulans can be distinguished by their sickly colour when compared to neons, and their shape is horrendous

make up my mind? about what?

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## hwchoy

> ----------------
> On 1/20/2002 12:56:32 PM 
> 
> p. simulans are exactly the same colour as neons, not green
> those are p. innesi var.
> p. simulans can be distinguished by their sickly colour when compared to neons, and their shape is horrendous
> 
> make up my mind? about what?
> ----------------


make up your minds about how the Xray tetras are supposed to look like[ :Grin: ] 

Well Gan says they are Green Neons (actually they're blue), which is also a common name used by some websites to refer to P. simulans. Came across a pic once showing what is purported to be P. simulans, and also description from some other article, that P. simulans look like the Cardinal in that the red stretches through the belly as well (although the red is not very prominent), but that the neon stripe goes all the way to the caudal peduncle unlike the Cardinal.

I have a pic somewhere but first have to find out how to link it here. Then you tell me if it is actually the P. simulans.

Why do you say the shape is horrendous?

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## DEA

neons have a nice shape
p. simulans looks like battered neons

and why the x-ray tetra thing?
x-ray tetras only look 1 way

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## DEA

hmm
actually
i realised the body shape isn't a qualitative method to distinguish the 2 species
the neon stripe is more distinct

got a pic of urs?

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## hwchoy

> ----------------
> On 1/20/2002 9:55:10 PM 
> 
> hmm
> actually
> i realised the body shape isn't a qualitative method to distinguish the 2 species
> the neon stripe is more distinct
> 
> got a pic of urs?
> ----------------


couldn't figure out how to stick a pic in here... I'll send a pic I got off the internet to you, purporting to be P. simulans.

as for the ones I have, I got them from Gan, what he calls Green Neon. The same ones Nature Aq uses in the Riccia carpet display (the one with just Riccia and a tree branch and a bunch of 100 green neon). If you went to Gan in the last month you must have seen them.

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## DEA

i didn't see them, because i wasn't interested in them [: :Smile: ] 
email me with the pic and i'll put it up

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## DEA

should be
the neon stripe terminates at the tail
i'm wondering
what colour are neons normally?
are they different? or not green?
or is the name just marketing hype?

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## hwchoy

picture's on the way. BTW I took a look at P. innesi and it has similar neon stripe as Cardinal, ie the stripe ends before the caudal peduncle and the red extends into the caudal fin. The Green neon that Gan has is similar to the pic I sent you (the neon stripe and the red patch co-terminates), although they are somewhat more colourful than the pic.

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## hwchoy

> ----------------
> On 1/21/2002 1:03:00 AM 
> 
> should be
> the neon stripe terminates at the tail
> i'm wondering
> what colour are neons normally?
> are they different? or not green?
> or is the name just marketing hype?
> ----------------


DEA, your fingers are too fast for me  :Wink:  

Can I assume that Gan's green neon are the bona fide P. simulans?
To answer your questions: the neon stripes are blue with somewhat greenish tinge and no yellow, whereas I notice Cardinals and Neons would have flashes of yellowish green when they turn. On some specimens the red are very thin and merges with the blue to look purplish, while on some the reds can be quite broad. In all cases the neon and the red stop dead at the tail together.

Behaviourially, they tend to shoal separately, the green neon somewhat on a level higher than the Cardinals, nearer the surface. However this could be due to size difference, as my Cardinals are &amp;gt;3cm and the neons are no more than 1.5cm.

An article (belive from www.notcatfish.com) claimed that P. axelrodi and P. simulans are co-located species in the Rio Negro region while the P. innesi are found somewhere else (another river system NW from Rio Negro).

DEA, still don't get your point about their shape. They look the same like cardinals and neons to me [ :Knockout: ]

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## DEA

heh, cos the one in my book looks like it's starving

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## hwchoy

> ----------------
> On 1/21/2002 1:28:04 AM 
> 
> heh, cos the one in my book looks like it's starving
> ----------------


well it's interesting to see the pic of the pair since one (left) does look kind of starved. Think the left one is male and the right one is female. The Cardinals are similar in that way. Not sure about P. innesi as I have not kept any.

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