The A-Z Of Neon Tetra Disease

Neon tetra disease I’m going to jump straight into this article. This disease is a nasty piece of work and difficult for tetra to survive from. Hopefully, I can give enough tips and tricks to help save a few fish. 

Here we go with the A-Z of neon tetra disease. The disease is usually shortened to NTD and the first thing we need to know is that most fish can contract this disease. Secondly, it’s highly contagious, and third, it’s fatal there is no known cure.

Keep reading as we may have stumbled across a possible cure although it’s by no means official. Ok, let’s start with the basics.

What Is Neon Tetra Disease?

Neon tetra disease is what’s known as a degenerative condition. Given rise to parasites that are both fast-spreading and fatal to fish. Named after the fish that was first identified in our buddy the neon tetra.

Fish condition is typically caused by a fish eating infected live food or consuming the remains of infected dead fish in the tank.

The disease is progressive, meaning it starts mild but quickly becomes very severe. The parasite consumes the fish once infected, affecting its muscle tissue and often leading to secondary infections.

Neon tetra disease is induced by a parasite named Pleistophora hyphessobryconis. Spores are unleashed and enter the fish. It’s usually transmitted by ingesting contaminated dead fish. Infestation is very challenging to treat, and basically impossible to treat in the latter stages of this infestation.

The most standard infectious diseases found in neon tetra are mycobacteriosis caused by the microsporidian parasite, Pseudoloma neurophilia. As the name suggests, the microsporidium infects neural tissue in the brain and spinal cord of our little friends. 

How Long Does Neon Tetra Disease Take To Kill

Neon tetra disease will usually take anywhere from a week to a month to kill your neon tetras. Neon tetra disease is contagious and passes on from one fish to another

It’s important to know that neon tetra disease is highly contagious, and the spores can survive in water for months. If healthy tank habitats are in contact with these spores they can still be infected.

What Does Neon Tetra Disease Look Like

You will see white patches appear around the fish’s belly. These patches may expand towards the tails of the fish. Bloating and loss of their beautiful color. 

This disease is, however, one that attacks from the inside of the fish. So we need to look for symptoms not just what it looks like.

What Are Neon Tetra Disease Symptoms?

The symptoms are caused by muscle and tissue issues. Swollen belly white patches even white marks. cysts on the skin under the tummy and around the tail. This swollen belly can also be attributed to pregnancy and dropsy its important to look for other symptoms.

For more on dropsy check the above link.

As the disease progresses, affected muscle tissue turns white, generally starting within the color band and areas along the spine.

As further muscle tissue is impacted, the pale coloration grows. Symptoms of Neon Tetra Disease · Restlessness · Fish begin to lose coloration, with the white region of the belly expanding and white arising along the spine.

Injury to the muscles can induce curvature or bending of the spine, which may cause the fish to have problems when swimming. Because the muscles are especially affected, even fish without curved spines will have issues with movement.

Bloating in the body or eroding of the fins (especially the caudal fin) is not unusual. Nevertheless, these circumstances are both due to secondary infection rather than direct results of the disease itself. 

Can Neon Tetra Disease Spread To Other Fish?

Neon Tetra Disease Contagious to Other Aqualife? Yes, this disease is highly contagious and can spread to other fish in our aquariums.

 It’s important to know that neon tetra disease is highly infectious, and the spores can survive in water for months. If healthy tank fish ingest the body of an infected dead fish, it can easily spread through a tank quickly.

False Neon Tetra Disease

Did you know there is a false neon tetra disease? It’s known as columnaris, a condition that has very similar symptoms and characteristics to neon diseases.

Spot On Neon Tetra Mouth 

Possible Cure For NTD Neon Tetra Disease

As stated above there is no known cure but hold the front page this just in

We measure the cure Melafix, which is a fish medicine for bacterial diseases. As follows Add 5 ml. for every 10 gallons of aquarium water. For disease or wound treatment, dose every day for 7 days. After 7 days, complete a 25% water change. Resume treatment, if required. For a sum of 10 days.

magically, in a week, the neon tetra was completely cured! (disclaimer this was done early as soon as signs were noticed)(.) May not have been NTD. This treatment can be tried instead of euthanizing the poor neon tetra. Melafix seems like a promising medicine to cure or at least help to treat Neon Tetra Disease and its accompanying symptoms like fin rot.

After one dose of Melafix, and over 9 days, our neon tetra has displayed a surprising improvement. The white patch and loss of color are gone, and the fin rot around the tail is gone as well. In addition, the fin tissue near the tail has grown back to normal levels.

Why Do Neon Tetras Get Curved Spines

A curved spine or twisted body is often diagnosed with NTD. But it’s now believed this spinal condition may be genetic. Neon tetras tend to be a breeding issue. Fish farms produce many nano fish.

They simply don’t have time to sift through them all. Many neon tetras with bent backs slip into the market. In fact, instead of individually counting them, they weigh the neon tetras to approximate their numbers for shipping. It’s only once they land at the fish store that employees might have time to scoop out the defective fish because they don’t want the shop to look bad.

If you buy neon tetras when they are really small, it can be hard to tell which ones have bad spines, and the problem won’t be apparent until they get older and bigger.

Also The Way Fish Are Farmed Can Put Pressure On Their Backs. Bending  Them Like Divers When They Get Whats Called The Bends.

“Bent” fish are most probably widespread in the live fish business. As most of the species that have been studied were seen to suffer signs of decompression illness. After capturing from shallow depths of 10 to 15 meters (m) (see Histopathological studies,). 

Fish, like us, can become“bent” out of shape when exposed to quick changes in pressure during capture. 
The bends, or decompression sickness, is a syndrome associated with a fast and expansive reduction in environmental barometric pressure.
Because the bends are caused by the application of fundamental physics to living organisms, it is fair to predict that fish suffer bends in a fashion similar to humans.

Bends have been studied in humans involved in deep-sea diving, high-altitude aviation,
and underground engineering projects since the beginning of the last century. Indeed, the early theories of Haldane and associates (Boycott et al. 1908) is still used today for modeling decompression schedules. Most of our limited understanding of the effects of the bends in fish is based on our knowledge of the bends in humans.

How This Nasty Disease Works NTD 

As described earlier a fish digests tissue or an infected dead fish. Yep, they eat the fish while digesting the parasite releases spores. Up to 200 of these spores will be released within just a few hours.

So a few hours have passed now there are 200 of these parasitical spores. Guess what they will now each release 200 spores and it goes on and on in just a few days we could be talking about a million spores. each of these starts to eat away at the fish from the inside.

Starting from the digestive tract into the gut and stomach lining and through tissue and muscle. Eventually eating their way to organs and the brain. A disgustingly awful disease and a terrible way to die.

Also to make matters worse and to confuse us, hobbyists, more. These parasites are able to infiltrate female tetras eggs. This means the disease can lay dormant and neon can be born with this terrible disease. Once the junior starts developing and our neon tetra grows the disease attacks via the parasite and the cycle starts again.

We need to be careful as there’s no way of detecting NTD in fry or juvenile neons always quarantine first.

Summary Of NTD 

This disease is a parasitical fungus that lives inside its host. Causing chaos inside forming spores that eat away the fish from the inside. It has symptoms that mimic a few other infections and diseases. Some of these infections are indeed curable so try all the methods mentioned. 

Keep the water chemistry correct for these fish and try not to overstress them. Always quarantine your fish for a few weeks and slowly introduce them to the show tank.

Please if a fish exhibits any symptoms remove it as soon as possible. As if the fish dies while in your main tank and the other fish start eating away at it it’s too late.

I’m glad to have gotten all this information down in one place for us all. As it is needed I didn’t enjoy writing this article as much as this disease is a horror show. Hopefully, the article helps save some of our little fellas as the neon tetra is one of my favorite fish.

Please feel free to look around and read some more and keep on keeping fish.