Another one bites the dust
Apr. 25th, 2003 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydyBooks on fish keeping are full of odd little lies. The one that's annoying me at the moment is the claim that neon tetras are robust fish and easy to keep. I started my first aquarium last August. So far, I've had something like a dozen neons die, from a variety of unidentifiable causes.
My primary reason for getting a fish tank in the first place was to have neons. I adore their colors, and the way they school together to create a kaliedescopic effect. They are pleasant, friendly fish whose only vice is that of being tasty to other beautiful fish, such as angel fish. They are prone to a disease that is called, imaginitively enough, Neon Tetra Disease, which is a sporozoan parasite. They can also get False Neon Tetra Disease, which looks identitical to Neon Tetra Disease, but which is bacterial. Since neither is curable, the fact that they can only be distinguished from each other underneath a microscope is not all that important to an aquarist.
Neons are small. Fucking small. Trying to diagnose one is enormously frustrating. Is that red around the gills? Oh, for heavens sake, hold still you foolish fish! Is the blue line starting to break in the middle? Maybe, but maybe that's just the light. Cotton mouth? Maybe, but wait, come back here! How can I tell what you've got if you won't hold still, eh?
The first sick neons I had I was sure had Neon Tetra Disease. Most of the books and the web sites say that it's not curable, but various advertisements for drugs claim to cure it, and there are other resources that are less definite about its incurability. Moreover, the resources span about a 50 year period, and it can be very difficult to tell if the information I'm looking at comes from Innes very fine but outdated classic work, or something more recent. There's actually remarkably little information about the diseases of freshwater tropical fish, in fact. Given how long people have been keeping fish, I found that surprising.
The first round of sick fish I treated with Furazone Light, Aquarisol, Melafix, Quickcure, and eventually Naladixic Acid. Naladixic acid is very harsh. The remaining 3 neons (out of an initial 5) became very pale, as if bleached, and one of them died in 24 hours of treatment. The other two lived another couple of weeks. One died politely on his own. The other I had to euthanize. I froze him. The whole ordeal almost broke my heart. I tore about to various fish stores, asking for advice and buying different kinds of medication. One of the stores I called told me that I was crazy to be spending so much money on a fish that cost $1. I ignored him. Once I bought them, they were my responsibility, and that included the best care I can provide.
The next round of sick neons came soon enough. I had read a great deal more by then, and had even less of a clue what was wrong with them. They had something that I call "gasping disease", which looks a lot like gill disease, but not quite. The primary symptom is hanging near the bottom of the aquarium and opening and closing its mouth very rapidly. The gills are also moving rather quickly. However, the gills don't look irritated until the fish becomes terminally ill. I concluded that probably the previous fish had not had Neon Tetra Disease, which was a relief because it meant that probably evil sporazoa were not floating about loose in my aquarium(s) waiting to infect another batch of neons. This batch got treated with Melafix, Aquarisol, Quickcure, MaracynII, and eventually, penicillin.
I came home from work one day to find that one of the sick neons had given up the ghost. It was on its back, caught in some plastic plant leaves. I got out a net to remove the body, and it started to swim away. I yelled, "Goddamn it, now I have to kill you!" I was very upset. There had been a lot of argument on the mailing list I subscribed to about whether or not it is humane to freeze a fish to death. I'm still not convinced that it's cruel, they are cold blooded creatures and all. However, clove oil will also anaesthetize a fish, and everyone was in agreement about that being painless, so I used clove oil. It doesn't take much, and it doesn't take long, but it sure is upsetting, nevertheless.
One of them survived. I bought three white clouds to keep him company, as I didn't know what he had, but I didn't want him infecting any more of my neons. That meant that I couldn't put him back in the main tank. on the other hand, neons are schooling fish and he was utterly miserable by himself. He did pretty well with the white clouds. Eventually, I moved him over to the 6 gallon tank, to live with the betta. I moved the white clouds there, as well.
Right before Minicon, I found that I had three neons with "gasping disease" and one with a strange black mass that was growing larger. I don't know what that last one is. His color is still bright, and he seems tolerably cheerful. One of the other fish is the one who survived through the whole second round of medication, that I had bought the white clouds for. I couldn't do anything before Minicon, as I didn't have anyone I could leave in charge of a hospital tank which needed to have not just meds put in on a regular basis, but water tests done regularly to make sure it wasn't building up toxins.
Back from Minicon, I set up the hospital tank again (why had I ever taken it down?) and transferred all the sick fish into it. They guy with the black mass looks the same. The black spot is maybe larger, but not a lot. I have no idea what's wrong with him. The ones with gasping disease were significantly worse.
Just now, I've euthanized the neon that had been schooling with the white clouds. I'm sad. I've gotten rather hard hearted in the months since I first started fish keeping. Fish must die pretty frequently in the wild, too, seeing as how they have such large numbers of babies. Neons are downright delicate fish, and very difficult to keep alive. Everyone I've talked to agrees -- and the book be damned. Still, I'm really sad about this one. He'd pulled through once before, and I'd gotten quite attached to him as an individual. Well, admittedly, he was only an individual because I could tell him apart from the other fish in the aquarium, but still.
Guess I'll buy some more neons this week. I'm down to seven in the main tank, and I'd really prefer something between 12 and 18.
My primary reason for getting a fish tank in the first place was to have neons. I adore their colors, and the way they school together to create a kaliedescopic effect. They are pleasant, friendly fish whose only vice is that of being tasty to other beautiful fish, such as angel fish. They are prone to a disease that is called, imaginitively enough, Neon Tetra Disease, which is a sporozoan parasite. They can also get False Neon Tetra Disease, which looks identitical to Neon Tetra Disease, but which is bacterial. Since neither is curable, the fact that they can only be distinguished from each other underneath a microscope is not all that important to an aquarist.
Neons are small. Fucking small. Trying to diagnose one is enormously frustrating. Is that red around the gills? Oh, for heavens sake, hold still you foolish fish! Is the blue line starting to break in the middle? Maybe, but maybe that's just the light. Cotton mouth? Maybe, but wait, come back here! How can I tell what you've got if you won't hold still, eh?
The first sick neons I had I was sure had Neon Tetra Disease. Most of the books and the web sites say that it's not curable, but various advertisements for drugs claim to cure it, and there are other resources that are less definite about its incurability. Moreover, the resources span about a 50 year period, and it can be very difficult to tell if the information I'm looking at comes from Innes very fine but outdated classic work, or something more recent. There's actually remarkably little information about the diseases of freshwater tropical fish, in fact. Given how long people have been keeping fish, I found that surprising.
The first round of sick fish I treated with Furazone Light, Aquarisol, Melafix, Quickcure, and eventually Naladixic Acid. Naladixic acid is very harsh. The remaining 3 neons (out of an initial 5) became very pale, as if bleached, and one of them died in 24 hours of treatment. The other two lived another couple of weeks. One died politely on his own. The other I had to euthanize. I froze him. The whole ordeal almost broke my heart. I tore about to various fish stores, asking for advice and buying different kinds of medication. One of the stores I called told me that I was crazy to be spending so much money on a fish that cost $1. I ignored him. Once I bought them, they were my responsibility, and that included the best care I can provide.
The next round of sick neons came soon enough. I had read a great deal more by then, and had even less of a clue what was wrong with them. They had something that I call "gasping disease", which looks a lot like gill disease, but not quite. The primary symptom is hanging near the bottom of the aquarium and opening and closing its mouth very rapidly. The gills are also moving rather quickly. However, the gills don't look irritated until the fish becomes terminally ill. I concluded that probably the previous fish had not had Neon Tetra Disease, which was a relief because it meant that probably evil sporazoa were not floating about loose in my aquarium(s) waiting to infect another batch of neons. This batch got treated with Melafix, Aquarisol, Quickcure, MaracynII, and eventually, penicillin.
I came home from work one day to find that one of the sick neons had given up the ghost. It was on its back, caught in some plastic plant leaves. I got out a net to remove the body, and it started to swim away. I yelled, "Goddamn it, now I have to kill you!" I was very upset. There had been a lot of argument on the mailing list I subscribed to about whether or not it is humane to freeze a fish to death. I'm still not convinced that it's cruel, they are cold blooded creatures and all. However, clove oil will also anaesthetize a fish, and everyone was in agreement about that being painless, so I used clove oil. It doesn't take much, and it doesn't take long, but it sure is upsetting, nevertheless.
One of them survived. I bought three white clouds to keep him company, as I didn't know what he had, but I didn't want him infecting any more of my neons. That meant that I couldn't put him back in the main tank. on the other hand, neons are schooling fish and he was utterly miserable by himself. He did pretty well with the white clouds. Eventually, I moved him over to the 6 gallon tank, to live with the betta. I moved the white clouds there, as well.
Right before Minicon, I found that I had three neons with "gasping disease" and one with a strange black mass that was growing larger. I don't know what that last one is. His color is still bright, and he seems tolerably cheerful. One of the other fish is the one who survived through the whole second round of medication, that I had bought the white clouds for. I couldn't do anything before Minicon, as I didn't have anyone I could leave in charge of a hospital tank which needed to have not just meds put in on a regular basis, but water tests done regularly to make sure it wasn't building up toxins.
Back from Minicon, I set up the hospital tank again (why had I ever taken it down?) and transferred all the sick fish into it. They guy with the black mass looks the same. The black spot is maybe larger, but not a lot. I have no idea what's wrong with him. The ones with gasping disease were significantly worse.
Just now, I've euthanized the neon that had been schooling with the white clouds. I'm sad. I've gotten rather hard hearted in the months since I first started fish keeping. Fish must die pretty frequently in the wild, too, seeing as how they have such large numbers of babies. Neons are downright delicate fish, and very difficult to keep alive. Everyone I've talked to agrees -- and the book be damned. Still, I'm really sad about this one. He'd pulled through once before, and I'd gotten quite attached to him as an individual. Well, admittedly, he was only an individual because I could tell him apart from the other fish in the aquarium, but still.
Guess I'll buy some more neons this week. I'm down to seven in the main tank, and I'd really prefer something between 12 and 18.
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Date: 2003-04-25 10:53 pm (UTC)I never had good luck with neons either. As a kid, I had a tank of fancy guppies and neons and they never did well. The best luck I ever had was with a cheap tiny little orange goldfish that was given to me at a Ben Franklin at a summer sidewalk sale. Pretty sure it was the kind normally used as a fish food for bigger fish (and sold for a nickel). Anyway. I put it in a fishbowl and fed it religiously for a while until I let things slide (hey, I was a kid and had other interests). I remember that eventually the bowl was just disgusting with algae and everything, to the point you could hardly see that fish. But you know what? The goldfish thrived. Eventually he outgrew the fishbowl, was a good four or five inches long and I released him into one of our outdoor ponds (where he didn't last as long, alas).
My Dad raised the most fish, I mostly enjoyed watching the fish in those tanks. Except I'm a pushover for bettas and so I had a series of them first in fishbowls and then in the little "betta barracks" plastic pod things that you hang in a regular tank to keep 'em away from the rest of the fish (and each other). I still mourn the gorgeous black betta I had once that had amazing fins that reminded me of a handkerchief skirt or something Stevie Nicks would wear. And then there was this gorgeous chocolate colored goldfish I named Cadbury which was too cute and sweet to be a fish.
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Date: 2003-04-27 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
MKK
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Date: 2003-04-25 11:34 pm (UTC)MKK
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Date: 2003-04-26 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-27 01:09 pm (UTC)Frankly, water chemistry confuses me all the way to the bone. I know all the different characteristics influence each other, pH, hardness, temperature, carbon content, etc. etc. Damned if I can understand the explanations, though. It doesn't help that I didn't get any chemistry in high school. I took chemistry, you understand, and I even got an A, but the teacher was quite literally senile, and I never learned anything except how to clean glassware. We spent the first two weeks of class inventorying and cleaning glassware. Here's how crazy she was: she was teaching us how to read graduated cylinders. This doesn't seem like it would require a lot of explanation, does it? After explaining how to view the cylinder, and to use the bottom of the bubble to determine the measurement, she started discussing significant digits. Significant digits, easy. If you have a measurement of, say, 9.8445728 but you only want 2 significant digits, then you take the third digit from the right of the decimal, use it to round it the second digit, and you're done.
That wasn't what she wanted us to do, though. In a flight of illogic, she insisted that you start at the end of the string of numbers. Use the last number to round the next one up or down as appropriate. Then, use the result to round the next one, and so on. I spent an entire lunch hour trying to get her to explain this. She handed me graduated cylinder after graduated cylinder and had me read them. After each time, she would say, "You see, you see?" No, actually, I didn't. What reading a graduated cylinder had to do with this novel approach to rounding numbers was utterly opaque to me. I finally burst into tears and fled.
At any rate, perhaps you can see why it is that I didn't learn any chemistry in high school. There were other impediments, like her collecting assignments she'd never made, and refusing to collect homework she had assigned. I flunked a test because I mis-capitalized pH. Come to think of it, I don't think I passed a single test in that class. How I got an A isn't really any more mysterious than anything else that she did, I suppose.