my neontetras

Question
QUESTION: i have had my aquarium operating for about 6 weeks now. i started with 1 guppy, 2 sunset platy's and 3 neontetra. last week i added a corydora.
i have changed my water twice with 25% water changes each time.
yesterday, one of my neontetra began to swim upside down and drift in the current, then died. i didn't think anything of it i just thought he was old. so today i bought 2 new neontetra's. i let them sit in the bag in the tank for 1 hour then i let them out. i ate supper then came back to check on them only to find 2 more neontetra's swimming upside down, drifting in the current. they are now lying on the bottom of the tank not moving.
should i get a water sample done? if the water is fine, what should i do?

ANSWER: Hi Alina,
A water sample would definitely would be helpful here. It may be a water quality problem, neons are sensitive to ammonia or nitrites in the water or even too high nitrates.

Make sure to ask what the actual readings are and not settling with just "the water's fine" which really doesn't tell you much and some petstores consider a little bit of ammonia to be acceptable. Your water should have ZERO ammonia and nitrites and Nitrates under 20.

If the water turns out very good. Then you may have to blame the fact that you may have just got some 'bad stock', neons, like many fish, die for no other apparent reason than stress. Stress from being shipped to the petstore, kept in unfavorable conditions there, then being netted again and taken home to your aquarium. Its a lot for such tiny creatures to handle sometimes.
The keys are to try to find the healthiest, strongest neons you can. Those with bright shining color and no fish should be lacking coloration or be sitting in the corner or otherwise acting listless.

Let me know how things go. ;-)

Best of luck and I hope this helps!
Karen~

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: okay so i have 2 sunset platies aswell and i have had them since i started my fish tank about 6 weeks ago. one is male and the other is female. i thought the female was pregnant for awhile because she is much fatter than the other one. today she was swimming around looking healthy just like normal, but when i arrived home from school, she was lying on the bottom of my tank not moving. is she giving birth? is she dead? I'm not going to take her out of the tank until she goes belly up, is this the right thing?

Answer
Oh I'm sorry to hear that.

She may be suffering from something. Like an unknown illness or water quality issues.

But I would definitely suspect water quality issues here due to the tank being a relatively new setup and I would do a 30-50% water change ASAP. Try to get your water checked as soon as you can.

Best of luck,
Karen~