Neons sucked into my pump

KenC1

I have never seen this as far as I can remember.
I bought 8 neons last night and am housing them in a 5 gallon tank with 10 guppies until I can get my 20 gallon running.
put them in there last night and so far today I have lost 3 of them. Two of them were found in the inlet to the submersible pump that came with the aquarium.
I don't know if they were sucked in there or if they were so sick that they couldn't swim away from it. ( I made the stupid mistake of buying them from a tank that had 3 dead fish on the surface.) They were the only neons I saw all day.
I am watching them now to figure out if the rest are going to make it.
I have not been able to find any testing kits here so far in two Fish stores.

ladayen

You've probably caused an ammonia spike and they are being poisoned. 18 fish in a 5 gallon is too much, even on a temporary basis. Have you tested your parameters? What test kit are you using?

KenC1

I have a thread about testing the water here in the aquarium thread.
I have been to several stores and they don't sell the kits to test the water here. I cannot even find a good thermometer and they don't sell heaters to adjust the temperature anyway.
I do know that there were a few dead fish in the tank where I bought them and it is advised to not buy from them but I wanted to get some neons and they were cheap. I got 8 for under $2.00.
So far half of them have died. I am just watching the others to see what happens.
I have them in the 20 gallon tank now with an underground filter. I will just have to see what happens with that.
The remaining 4 seem to be doing okay so far. They have been there overnight with 4 guppies.

TL1000RSquid

With that many fish even temporary you need to be doing daily water changes, atleast a good 25% and dosing it with Prime.

Getting hardy neons seems be a pain, I bought a dozen from 2 different big box stores here and with in a week only 2 were alive. I'de find a couple dead stuck to my filter intake every morning and after work. Picked up 8 more from a local shop, 2 of those died the first couple days rest are doing great

Not sure where your located if its out of the U.S. or not, but Amazon has freshwater master test kits for like $18.50.

KenC1

I will check the ones on Amazon. They ship books to me here and other things. Maybe they will ship that also.
Thanks. I really need to know the parameters so I can be sure of what is going on.

KenC1

Checked Amazon and they will not ship it to the Philippines. I run into this a lot with these supplies. (Maybe it is a conspiracy. LOL)

TL1000RSquid

Ah checked a couple other online stores I've used looks like they all only ship to the US and Canada.

Ammonia is the main threat right now though with that population its going to be high, my suggestion till you can get them into the bigger tank, swap out about 2 gallons of water a day.

KenC1

I have 5 guppies moved to the 20 gallon tank with 3 neons. The rest of the neons died. They have all been doing well there for the past 24 or so hours with no new surprises.
It seems the crisis is over for now.
The 5 gallon tank now has 5 guppies and 2 small Goldfish. When the Goldfish grow a bit more they will be given to a relative who has an outdoor pond. They will be happy there.
The bright tank is the 5 gallon and the other one is the 20 gallon mounted in the wall.

Attached Images

	5Gallon 2.jpg (49.5 KB, 40 views)
	20 gallon 3.jpg (49.2 KB, 40 views)

TL1000RSquid

Looks good, even with only 3 making it you still came out ahead of us here in the U.S. current going rate on Neon's is $1 usually when on special, with the average price $1.50-$2 each.

KenC1

I finally made it to the third store yesterday. They had almost no small fish and the ones they had looked like Guppy eaters. The clerk actually suggested one of them. I told him I didn't want to feed my guppies to that one.
He also didn't know that they had a few individual testing kits that were expensive. He said most people just go by if the fish live or die to determine if their water is right. Sounds crude but you can buy about 100 neons for the price of a testing kit.
I managed to buy a sponge made in China. The testing kits seemed to have a leakage on the bottle so I didn't get it. I am going to try to find something acceptable. Maybe a hardware store will have something.
Off the topic, the car air conditioner also went out yesterday so I will need to divert money to get that fixed. Air conditioning in a car is as important as the motor here all year long.