And Then There Were Three

29th May 2006 · 13 Comments

I have grown complacent by the success of the white cloud mountain minnows and completely forgotten just how frustrating fish keeping can be.

Last week, I bought six neon tetras – nice, bright, cheerful and fairly common little tropical fish – bringing the total stock in my 30L biorb up to twelve fish.

I watched over them carefully, did everything I could to aclimatise them, then slowly and gently released them into the tank. It was great fun watching them explore and settle in. I started to relax and mentally planned the next additions for a month’s time.

Then, on day 2, they started to go missing.

One by one, they’ve been failing to show up for breakfast time. Mysteriously, all survivors are showing no sign of distress or disease and only one corpse has been found (they’re a bugger to find anyway – they go transparent on death, conveniently blending in to everything – also their “loving” companions tend to use fish corpses for a midnight snack…) It’s enough to make a girl very paranoid.

Water quality has been checked daily and nothing is amiss there. I’ve had the water checked by the fish supplier too, to be on the safe side. The verdict seems to be that neon tetras can be a bit peaky and it’s “just one of those things”.

Then, while discussing the problem on the biorb forum, I find out that most neon tetras are wild caught. To capture them en masse, a dose of cyanide is squirted to stun them, then they’re scooped up and sent abroad to be sold. Over half die in transit. Unsurprisingly, loads of them die within a month of them being sold.

I’m pretty shocked, to be honest. I’m obviously new to the world of the tropical aquarium and never knew this went on. I assumed that at least the more popular and common tropical fish were captive bred in the UK. Sadly, it seems I was pretty naive.

So now I’m on the hunt for some captive bred neon tetra. I have three left – I’m not sure how long they’ll last. I’m still on corpse watch for the other two unaccounted for fish.

Maybe I should just get a tank solely stocked by hardy minnows instead…

Tags: That Damned Fish

13 responses so far ↓

1 Maria loves pictures // 29th May 2006 at 6:13 pm

Congratualations to the purchase of the fresh fish for you aquarium. 12 is a great number for a fish holder and underwater pet lover. It must be very relaxing to see this colorful, little tropical fish swarm to swimm illuminated by the light.
2 Miss L // 29th May 2006 at 8:04 pm

Corrr, the immoratlity of keeping fish!! And fancy turning see through when you curl up your toes – now that could be very useful!! I want to do that…
3 Pewari // 29th May 2006 at 8:30 pm

But Miss L … fish don’t have toes ;) (they have fingers though, obviously…)
4 cassie-b // 30th May 2006 at 2:21 pm

Good luck. I had neons for a while and had to replace them regularly. I’ll bet that’s the reason. My one remaining neon lived with a goldfish for several years.
5 heather // 30th May 2006 at 5:07 pm

This is why I can’t have fish. I couldn’t handle the death rate.
6 Miss L // 31st May 2006 at 10:21 am

At least your dead ones didn’t suffer in the way our goldfish did – it jumped out of the globe. I saw it was missing and spent some tiem looking for it, only to find that I had trodden on it…Yuk!
7 Pewari // 31st May 2006 at 10:04 pm

Lost another one today … retrieved the corpse :(

And then there were two…
8 fishy // 17th Jun 2006 at 12:12 pm

tropical fish are great but they are real hard to take care of, good luck with yours.
9 Damien // 10th Jul 2006 at 3:58 pm

Hi,

Sorry to hear you’ve had problems with your Neons. They can be difficult to keep especially because they are prone to Neon Tetra disease which is very nasty and almost impossible to get rid of once it’s in your system.

That said – actually most Neons are now bred in captivity simply beacause of the huge demand for them. What size were they when you got them?

Captive bred individuals are sold very young and will be very small and thin. Wild caught fish will be of varying age and will be noticably larger / fuller.

The practice you describe certainly is common but it’s more commonly used to collect marine fish.

Damien
10 Pewari // 10th Jul 2006 at 4:18 pm

Hi Damien, thanks for dropping by :)

The ones I bought were fairly large (particularly in comparison to the cardinals I replaced them with) – hard to tell exactly (as they’re in the biorb now, which magnifies them!) but I’d say just under an inch long.

It’s encouraging that more of them are captive bred than I was led to believe. I shall probably be getting another neon to round up the numbers in the tank a bit anyway in the next couple of weeks – lets hope I pick a survivor!
11 Art Garcia // 24th Aug 2006 at 1:46 pm

Hello,

Can I ask a little favor from you?

I submitted a tee shirt design called NEON TETRA
to be voted on and hopefully printed.

If I get enough high scores the shirt will be printed and
sold from the site and I will win some prizes. Please take a look
at it and if you like it, please do sign up and give it a score.
Hopefully a five!

Please send the link to your friends who are also Neon Tetra lovers.

Thank you very much for your support!

Art Garcia

URL: http://www.threadless.com/submission/87251/Neon_Tetra
12 Martyn // 4th Dec 2006 at 3:57 pm

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the problems you are having with your tetras. I have a 60 litre tropical biorb, and the first fish I added were 6 neons. I was surprised when the man at the fish shop said tetras would be fine to start, but they have been fine for the last 18 months!

I’ve always used Maidenhead Aquatics for my fish (they have stores around the UK) and they have always been healthy. The one thing to watch though is sometimes their plants sometimes seem to be home to snails.

I have lost 4 fish over the 18 months and they were all when they were established in the tank – three rasboras when the water got too hot last summer, and one leopard danio who just disappeared. Never found the remains (even after clearing the tank down to move house) so guess he was eaten.

Current tank inhabitants : 6 x neon tetra, 6 x lemon tetra, 4 x leopard dani, 1 x harlequin rasbora
13 Pewari // 4th Dec 2006 at 7:01 pm

Yes, I’ve heard Maidenhead Aquatics are really good – I don’t think there’s one near to me though unfortunately.

All my neon tetras went in the end, although I do have 3 beautiful cardinals in there now.

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