Hi,

This is my first time keeping tropical fish, so please bear with me,

I have a large tropical set up, probably about 3 years old. I started with 6 neon tetras and one betta. I now have one tetra - the other 5 seemed to die from swim bladder (they started swimming vertically) and the betta just finally died of what I believe is dropsy.

So, I clearly have a tank I can't just add more fish to, as there is lingering disease. Plus the solo tetra is probably not very happy by itself.

What would you do? I understand that before I get more fish I'd need to completely clean everything in the tank and start again. But obviously with the last tetra there I can't do this yet (I don't have spare tanks etc to keep him in).

Do you think I should just leave the one tetra to live out his days alone? Or get some sort of temporary tank to transfer him to so I can do a clean down and potentially sell the rest of the gear (not sure I can be bothered starting again)?

When I look at the instructions on cleaning a tank after disease, it says about bleaching etc. Is this really necessary? Seems very aggressive. Does anyone have some good online instructions they'd recommend?

Thanks

Sorry for the late reply - only just saw this. Neons are prone to this kind of thing these days and the Betta dying with dropsy is typical when they come to the end of their life. I doubt any pathogens are present in the tank now as the final neon is doing ok. You can either add more fish (neons) to keep him company, or if you really don't want to start over let him live out his life and then sell the gear. It's not ideal as they are shoaling fish so they prefer to be with a group, but if you're set on giving up it's bound to come to one last fish at some point.

Thanks

Sorry for the late reply.
I completely agree with Fishlady. However, if you preferred not to have neons again, similar fish such as cardinal tetras or green neon tetras would probably be fine alongside your lone neon.
[A personal anecdote: Currently, I have a lone cardinal tetra, having decided not to re-stock as they have never done well in my tank and assuming he would die soon after the others. To my surprise, he has been thriving, pottering around either on his own or with some of the ember tetras (but not with the rasboras). It might be that yours will be ok alongside other tetras.]