help! New neon tetra is being bullied hard!

[Savvi23]

Hi everyone! New to this forum.



Little backstory -



I was misinformed and uneducated when I got my 10 gal tank. Unfortunately, it caused many causalities before I did enough research to know about cycling. I would have done fishless (which I wish I had done from the beginning) but I had one lone survivor from when the tank was brand new.



So it’s been cycling fish in, I’ve been testing the water like a mad woman and just really staying on top of things. Since my one fish is a neon tetra and they like to school, I thought it would be safe to add in one more. That way he had a friend and I would have a little bit more of a bioload in there to help the cycle. Now I know this is often warned against but I got conflicting information/advice and decided to do it.



I spent quite some time acclimating the new fish today because there was a drastic PH difference between lfs and tank. I was so excited to finally transfer him and was pleased to see how well he handled the first few minutes. Most of the previous fish acted very differently after transfer before dying shortly after, so I thought this was a good sign.



Well pretty soon after, my excitement turned to horror. My old neon tetra immediately started bullying him. I know it is normal for them to chase but he hasn’t left him alone at all for about an hour now. He’s also fin picking quite a bit. No visible damage to the new fish yet but I can’t imagine it’s good for an already stressed out fish going into a new tank to have this stress as well. I can’t even go to sleep cause I’m so worried he’s going to die tonight. Not that there’s anything I can really do at this point... the new fish is a little bigger than the old one but not by much. He’s not fighting back either, he just runs away.



I’m just feeling discouraged. I messed up originally by even getting myself into this before cycling. But now I’m feeling like I messed up again by adding a friend. I thought that he’d be happy with one more, before I could add in 4 more to make a school. I don’t think the tank could handle 6 just yet since it’s not fully cycled. Everything I am reading is saying this behavior might continue until there is a school... so now I’m thinking maybe it would have been better to have only one for a while longer.



Has anyone experienced anything like this? And if so, is it really going to stay this bad until I add more, or will he back off a bit? Any other advice? I thought about taking him back to the fish store but I don’t know when I will have time over the next 2-3 days. I thought about taking the old fish out and rearranging the tank to help with territory issues.. but I don’t know much about how to even go about that. Would I just fill a bowl with the tank water and him? How long should I leave him out? Ugh so many questions. I’m just constantly being surprised about how hard this whole aquarium thing is and even though I’m determined and giving it my all, I just keep messing up along the way. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks guys.

 

[fishorama]

That's part of tetra behavior & why you'll need more...eventually. I would wait until you tank is cycled to add any more fish. How is that coming? What exactly are your water test numbers?

I "assume" you're having to change a large amount of water every day to keep the fish safer...is that right? You can, in an emergency, dose Prime water conditioner for the volume of the tank every 48 hours if you REALLY can't change water. In a small tank it doesn't really take that long, but more than 2 days is too long to wait!

Do you have plants, real or fake? They can help break up lines of sight, as can large rocks & wood.

Feed very, very small amounts maybe every other day. The fish can handle that much better than ammonia & nitrite. "Fish in" cycling takes longer because you need to keep the ammonia & nitrite under 0.50ppm, 0.25 is better, but even that is harming your fish.

Good luck! You've got some work ahead as you know. Keep it up! & let us know how it's going.

 

[Savvi23]

That's part of tetra behavior & why you'll need more...eventually. I would wait until you tank is cycled to add any more fish. How is that coming? What exactly are your water test numbers?

I "assume" you're having to change a large amount of water every day to keep the fish safer...is that right? You can, in an emergency, dose Prime water conditioner for the volume of the tank every 48 hours if you REALLY can't change water. In a small tank it doesn't really take that long, but more than 2 days is too long to wait!

Do you have plants, real or fake? They can help break up lines of sight, as can large rocks & wood.

Feed very, very small amounts maybe every other day. The fish can handle that much better than ammonia & nitrite. "Fish in" cycling takes longer because you need to keep the ammonia & nitrite under 0.50ppm, 0.25 is better, but even that is harming your fish.

Good luck! You've got some work ahead as you know. Keep it up! & let us know how it's going.

Hi! Thanks for the response. Soooo I actually have GloFish Tetras... not neons lol I get the names mixed up and realize they’re different fish (GloFish are black skirt tetra).

Update: little guy made it through the night and the old one has backed off quite a bit. There is still a little bullying going on but the fin picking seems to have stopped, which is good because he had half of his left fin pecked off last night.
I do have plants. Mostly fake! I rearranged them before bed to confuse the old fish and also provide more of a sight barrier. I also have one live moss ball.

About the tank: well that’s the hard part. I’ve done the research but I do find conflicting info. I have yet to see either nitrates or nitrites appear on test (API master kit). I beat the crap out of the nitrate bottles too, so I feel like that’s accurate. Ammonia level fluctuates between 0, 0.25 and 0.5 but has never exceeded that. I just dose prime and let it do its thing. The ammonia cycles out by the next test usually or has least decreased so I don’t every worry “too” much. I read that it needs a little ammonia to cycle. Also since the PH Is lower (6.0), I read that helps keep the toxicity of ammonia down too. I do water changes every so often but honestly... I’ve read so much conflicting info on them that I’m confused. I don’t know if I’m supposed to do them everyday, even if ammonia is at 0 -.25 OR if I’m supposed to wait till it goes above that and then do one. So I’m kinda winging it in that dept. I also don’t know where the ammonia is going when it disappears because I don’t detect nitrites or nitrates. I wondered if my moss ball may have been a factor there but I’m so new to this that I have no idea. You mentioned prime lasts for 48 hours. I’ve been dosing every 24 when there is any ammonia in the tank. Is that bad?

Exact numbers as of now are:

PH: 6.0

Ammonia: .5 (prime recently dosed and giving a little more time before water change due to just adding that fish last night. Probably going to change tonight)

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

Temp: 77 f

 

[fishorama]

OK, the Prime is keeping the ammonia in the safer form of ammonium, so that's good!

The bad news is "glow" or regular skirt tetras get to 2.5-3 inches...too big for your 10g in a group at least 5 or 6 that they really need.

What I'd suggest for now is continue cycling your tank with the 2 glow tetras...then plan to eventually give or trade them back to your LFS & get much smaller fish, like neons. 10g just doesn't have much room.

Neons like low 70Fs for temp.