Could I have been wrong on NTD?

[roark fishies]

The lone neon I have left is still going strong. He only has a very slight faded spot where the tail meets the tail fin. It's been 3 MONTHS since I first suspected NTD and put him in QT. The second one that came down with it has already died even though he didn't have it as long. If he did not have NTD then he had some type of degenerative (sp?) disease that caused his color to fade and his back end to droop. Could I have been wrong about NTD? I wonder if it's safe to put other fish with him or should I wait a little longer?

[jediinthedark]

How do I say this...

Neon breeders do not seem overly concerned with keeping the genetic diversity up in their fish.
So often you get fish that will develop problems as they age. You'll hear many of us on the board laud Cardinal Tetras as alternatives because many are still wild caught (although they are being farmed now too) and the genetic diversity is still strong.

So what you may have is a fish with some whacked out bone or tumor problem. The type of thing that would normally get eaten first in the wild. But in your tank it lives an abnormally long life.

It's my understanding that a fish with NTD is going to die in a few days of symptoms appearing. So I'd add the little fella back into the tank. You don't have a school to protect him anymore, so any aggression may kill him, but you mostly have nice fish. I'd still add him back.

[roark fishies]

So you think it's probably NOT NTD? If that's the case, I'm really glad I didn't decide to just euthanize hm.
Well, what I was thinking about doing was putting the 3 neons in the big tank in the 10G with him. That way, just in case, if he does still have something contagious then it would only infect those 4 neons instead contaminating my big tank. If all seems well after a month or so then I may add a betta or something like that.

[jediinthedark]

No... I don't think it's NTD. He should have had a pretty violent death by now if it were.