# floating neons after eating



## DAS9 (Dec 27, 2009)

We purchased 6 neon tetras about a month ago. After about a week of shyness, they are all joining the community and eating well. However, a couple of them seem to bloat up within 5-10 minutes of feeding them (dry commercial Tetra flake food). Its not just a lot of food in their tummies, though. Instead these fish must have quickly accumulated gas too since they spend the next hour or so constantly swimming in a down vertical position so they're not floating at the surface of the tank. The symptoms pass until they get fed again. Doesn't occur every time but frequently and seemingly with the same glutens. Since these fish seem no worse for the experience I'm assuming it is not contagious. Any suggestions and information appreciated. The tank is doing very well otherwise and ammonia, nitrates, nitrites all good. 

Let me know if you need more information.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Odd behaviour is normal for neons, lol. Never noticed that with mine. Have you tried changing foods maybe?


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Flakes are the worst food to feed fish.They swell too much in the belly.I suggest you switch to pellets,and since they seem to bloat so quick,soak them for about ten minutes before placing in the tank.If they still bloat,feed them a little less.I had a glolight with the same issue,he would scurry to the food and gulp down as much as he could before the others had a chance.


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## DAS9 (Dec 27, 2009)

Thank you both for the suggestion. It does seem most likely that gluteny and food form/type maybe keys. I'll check into different forms of food we might try. For now we do have some frozen shrimp to try. I just hadn't thought of feeding that all the time. We have some pelleted food too, but we typically only feed one or two every few days primarily for the loach. We'll give these some tries and see if we can correlate the occurence of this float/bloat problem. I'm relieved no one (yet) has indicated this to be likely infectious disease.

All the best.


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