New-ish tank, first death

[Eddieb]

Hi folks

Had my tank set up about 2 1/2 months now. It's a 3 foot Waterhome unit with an Aquaclear 50 filter, heater plus I've added a bubble unit to stir the surface up.

After 3-4 weeks I introduced my first fish, 2 baby bn's from Danilada. They have been living happily since then and grown quite a bit. The larger of the 2 is now about 7cm (And just growing a whiskers) including tail and the smaller about 5.

Last Saturday I introduced 8 Neon Tetra's from our LFS and they seemed to have settled in well. The were eating, active, good colour etc. The LFS PH and my own were the same ~7.6 so no PH shock, they tested the water while I was there.

Last night I get home and the largest Neon is lying on the tank floor. I couldn't see any growths on him, he had good colour and nothing missing. The other 7 appear fine and both BN's appear fine.

I did a 30% water change just in case something is amiss in the water and tested ph which was still at ~7.6.

Guess it was just Neon's disease unless anyone has any advice?

I was going to post a pic of the tank I took last night but my webhost is having issues.

[tHEcONCH]

Nothing to worry about unless more of them start to die off. Neons aren't the most robust or long-lived of fish, so to have one die every now and again isn't unusual. You've already done the first thing you should do (a good water change) so just test your water and keep an eye out for symptoms of anything unusual

[ikekrull]

I lost 4 of my 8 neons in about 3 days - some the others in the school seemed to turn on and bite their tails off/strip their scales, and one just died - looked like his gills were all swollen up. I didnt find the corpse of that one for a couple of days, and i think my cory munched on the body which was sprouting huge amounts of fungus and died overnight, no outward sign of disease or damage.

The 4 i have left seem robust and healthy, though they seem quite territorial and aggressive for supposedly peaceful fish, but i kind of wish i never bought them because of the loss of my cory.

So don't worry - neons are bred in a way that practically guarantees huge losses - i can only imagine how many the petshops must lose in a week while they await sale.