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Do Fish Show Their Age?


Dee of CNY
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Hello, My question is Do Fish Show Old Age, particularly neon tetras?

I have a 40 gallon freshwater tank with about 14 community fish: white skirted tetras, neon tetras, a Chinese algae eater, and a few hatchet fish. Some of my fish are over 6 years old.

One of my neon tetras has a bent spine exactly like that shown in Corey's video, "The Truth About Neon Tetra Disease". It also no longer has eyes. I thought it was because of the advanced age of the tetra. It still eats and seems to manage. Corey mentioned NTD is often wrongly diagnosed & over the years I have had one or two other neons get the bent spine but no other symptoms so thought it was just old age. 

Do fish show their age this way or is it suffering from NTD and I should I euthanize it? (I do not have another aquarium to quarantine it.) No other fish show these symptoms.

Any help will be much appreciated!! Thank you very much!

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Hi Colu. Thank you for your reply!

It definitely has paler blue scales on it than the other neons. The blue area is now more silver.  It swims okay just not much - probably because it cannot see. Would you suggest removing it from tank? I check multiple times each day to make it's still alive. I dont want the other fish to eat it when it dies and become infected. I also feel bad euthanizing it if it's just old age. 😞

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9 minutes ago, Dee of CNY said:

Hi Colu. Thank you for your reply!

It definitely has paler blue scales on it than the other neons. The blue area is now more silver.  It swims okay just not much - probably because it cannot see. Would you suggest removing it from tank? I check multiple times each day to make it's still alive. I dont want the other fish to eat it when it dies and become infected. I also feel bad euthanizing it if it's just old age. 😞

I would suggest to remove it if you have a empty tank

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