pregnant or dropsy
pregnant or dropsy2007-11-24 23:40:10
5)Don't over feed. Feed once a day only what they can eat in a minute or 2.
Things to consider.
1)a 20-30 gallon is actually easier to maintain.
2)Tetras are soft water fish. If your tap water is medium to hard (10-25 kH) consider guppy, swordtail, or platty.
get yourself a much larger tank (20 - 40 gallon) and it'll save a lot of headaches like changing the water so much and the fish keep getting sick.
a 5 gallon tank can hold 1 betta.. that's it.
you can always tell it it's dropsy by looking from above the fish. if the scales are sticking out and it looks like a pine cone, then it got dropsy. It's pretty contagious. You have to quarantine it and treat it with meds.
You might want to think back how the other one looked before that it got ill and started to show weakness. Was it swollen too before it died? if so, I would say it was dropsy, but I would wait and see what happens to this one, or maybe you can isolate it from the rest of the fish.
Your luck might not be that great because neon tetras are amoung the most fragile of aquarium fish out there (I'd say Discus rank first, but who's counting?). Nitrates fuel plant growth in small amounts, and aren't harmfull to fish so long as they aren't in tremendous amounts. With Neons, your PH is more important; neons and cardinals prefer a PH of 7.0 nuetral. If yours is too high, try adding small pieces of driftwood as tank decoration (the driftwood will acidify the water as is slowly decomposes) or add a small nylon bag of peat moss to your filter. If you've got sea shells in the tank, remove 'em: Anything with a high calcium content raises your PH. If your PH is fine, never mind all this!