Neons are dying

Please tell me that you don't have all of those fish in a 20 gallon... Your bio load is way too heavy, some of those fish are going to be fast growing huge. I've only skimmed through the responses, but if your tank is not cycled with that kind of load, you will have casualties. Then you will have more casualties of the smaller species as your larger species grow. The kissing gouramies and bala sharks are definitely going to outgrow the 20 gallon before you know it. Please return them to the store, or rehome them and get fish the appropriate size for your tank.
Good luck,
Mary.
 
Hello, yes I have found out that the balas and kissers will outgrow the tank. I am planning on getting a bigger tank in the next few months but I have to wait until I move. I did not relize they would need such a large tank when I pirchased them. At the moment none of the fish in the tank are over 2 inches and all of then are healthy and swimming normally except the problems with the neons. I am going to look into a 129g tank but not sure where I can get one as my local shops only carry 75g. I would take the fish back except I have had them for over 3 months now and the stores will not take them back after this long unless I just give them to them. Each bala costed $6.49 each and the kissers were almost $3.00 each. I do keep a close eye on them to see if they are having any problems.

I have checked the Ammonia level with a test strip and it is in between the 0-.25 mark. The test says this is a safe level. I beleive it is closer to the 0 mark as the color on the test was closer to the 0 mark.

I also was reading on the forums that using regular rock (Not gravel but big stones, ect) is a bad idea and this will affect the ph levels. I have now removed all the regular rocks and put in different store bought rocks to try and help with the problems. Below are my current water levels.

Nitrate - 20ppm(mg/L)
Nitrite - 0ppm (mg/L)
Hardness - 300ppm (GH)
Alkalinity - 300ppm (KH)
ph - 7.8-8.4
Ammonia 0

Any ideas would be great.
 
Hello, so should I take the neons out. Will they make the other fish in the tank sick or not. I ask because one of my "always been healthy" balas just died for no reason that I could see. It was fine and within 2 hours it died with what looked like a soar on it side. After taking it out I noticed that it was bleeding internally. It just started floating around real weird and upside down and then just pasted away. Someone else said it might have been a swim bladder problem but I haven't fed the fish since this morning. Any ideas would be great. Thanks
 
If in doubt, quarantine. There's no reason to think it won't spread. When I had trouble, the neons and the danios took turns dying. I would separate any fish that look remotely ill, if you can, and feed everybody anti-bacterial food.

Others here may have a better diagnosis for what happened to the bala. You might make a new thread for that to see what folks who haven't been following this neon thread might say.
 
Hello, I went ahead and took out all the neons. I also had another bala die through the night sometime. I went ahead and did a complete cleaning. I changed out 50% of the water this morning and then changed it another 50% this evening. I will see if this helps any. I also added some ACE due to all the new water. I will keep posting if things keep going bad. Thanks for all the help.
 
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