Neon tetra fatalities. . . Help!

I really want a little school of neon tetras. I have a gentle community 55 gal tamk. Water is beautiful so should not be a problem. Nevertheless, I keep losing the neons. I am down to 5 (from about 12). I have a little school of glow light tetras and 3 brown neons that seem so much hardier . .
Is anyone else having similar problems?
Any advice from those of you with great success?

 

What are your water parameters (ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, gh, kh)

 

As I said beautiful water as in 0 ammonia 0 nitrites 0 nitrates around 7.4 ph.

 

ph is too high for the neon tetras. They thrive up to 7.0. Ammonia and nitrite looks good. Nitrate isn't suppose to be 0 but can't be too high. Nitrate is the bacteria colony in your filtration system. If you got 0 looks like you've got no bacteria colonies. Use API Quick Start which takes weeks or just do nothing which takes 10 weeks to have a bacteria colony. Nitrate can't be too high or it will be deadly to fish. I suggest a nitrate of 40 or below is okay.

 

My community fish AND tetra's ALL live in 8.0 ph water. The actual ph is not the issue as most fish CAN acclimate to it. The key is if they are going from one ph to another, to make sure you acclimate them properly as to not shock them.

So first, how are you acclimating new fish? Are you using a QT tank?

 

I take the bag open it put it in the tank wait 15 min and some of my tank water wait then repeat.

 

I take the bag open it put it in the tank wait 15 min and some of my tank water wait then repeat.

That is not long enough. What I would do moving forward is TEST your ph from the bag that came from the store BEFORE you start acclimating. Then test the ph in your tank you are putting them in. When I acclimate most fish, the whole process takes me 2 hours.

You can still add a small amount of tank water every few minutes but I would do this over the course of a few hours. You can also poke a small hole in the bag after you do about 2 cups of tank water and let it sit like that for an hour.

 

The ph from my lfs is 7.4 just like mine. and my acclimation process usually lasts up to 2 hours.

 

The ph from my lfs is 7.4 just like mine. and my acclimation process usually lasts up to 2 hours.

Well then I don't know. How soon after you get them do they die? Could be a bad batch??????

 

About a day to a week later