Okay This Is Really Frustrating

[Josiah]

Okay I want to make sure nothing is wrong with my tank before I get more. Okay about 1-2 weeks ago my mom actually bought me 6 neon tetras(she doesn't buy me fish very often). They were put into a 29g with plenty of filtration(to lazy to figure out the gph). The parameters are Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate just over 5 ph is 7.6 the tank is now kept at 77 Fahrenheit. Well we bought the neon's, I started floating them, waited ten minutes put a cup of water in, wait 15 minutes but a cup of water in, waited 20 minutes about a cup of water in, then wait 10 minutes, got a net got them out and put them in the tank. They are all fine at first, I wake up in the morning two are missing and I think "I bet my rams ate them" but then another dies a few hours later that day, I find him, then when I find him I find the other 2 that died. Next day 1 more was dead, next 2 died during the day. I was watching all I could, they all did the same thing that I saw die, they just floated at the top close to the small filter, until they died. Now I never saw anybody try to eat anybody else or anything like that. But the only thing I can figure out what may have happened was that it was to hot, I didn't know it at the time but the heater that was in there had over worked itself, and was constantly on, so when they died the water was 82-83 Fahrenheit. So I think it was either that or they had some kind of bacterial infection not visible to the eye. What do you all think? Oh and the tank mates were 4 albino cories, and 3 Bolivian rams.

 

[IMCL85]

how old is ur tank? Also is ur tank planted with planty of space to hide? From what I know ram dont attack other fish offen unless they breed. But song like ur tank ain't ready for neon yet, they really required a stable tank(mean old tank probably set up for more then 4 monthes to ensure everything is stable). I had been throught more then 30+ neon go bye bye before I begining to get a hand of it. Or maybe like u said they probably got some problem when u picked them up at store.

 

[Josiah]

The tank has been set-up for, umm on a guess at least 5 months, but I would say more like 6.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Sometimes you just get bad/weak batchs of neons in lfs- it is probably worth finding out how long the neons were in the lfs for before your mum got them as this is important to know when it comes to buying fragile/sensitive fish like neons.

On one occasion, i went and bought 8 neons an acclimatised them to my tank over a period of about 30-40 mins, and over the next couple of days about 3 of the neons died. A month later i went back to the same lfs and bought 8 more neons, i took them back and acclimatised them to my tank in exactly the same way as the previous ones and this time every neon survived- the only difference between the first and second lots of neons was that they had come into the lfs in separate batches.
So i think with neons it can be a bit hit and miss sometimes.

Of course there's always the posibility that a nasty bacterial disease wiped off the neons while they were still adjusting to the tank in the stressful first couple of days, which is why its always handy to have a quarentine tank for buying new fish.
I suspect that the neons you bought were just from a bad batch, i would advise waiting for about at least 2 weeks though before buying any new fish just to make sure the new neons you got didn't introduce any nasty diseases or parasites to the tank .