Yeah, the above paragraph was straying into dangerous territory in a beginners section as beginners can take it too seriously. Then a lot of explaining is needed, which is difficult on a forum. I may have to do it in bits and pieces caz 'cause the kids need a lot of carting around on weekends if you know what I mean, lol.
Its best to be solidly planted in the basics that fish need *stable* mineral content and pH, rather than some particular numerical value of these necessarily. If you give neons and pandas a tank with a good solid well-cycled filter and you keep pH stable, they can live long happy lives at some value that is not listed as their optimal.
Now it happens that both of these particular fish -are- a bit sensitive. But that is what good cycling is all about - good cycling will be a big part of it. Neons/Cards are very stange in that they have some other factor about new tanks, unrelated to cycling we think, that just bothers them. It seems to be an accurate observation that they have a much better chance of survival when the tank is 6 months old or older, regardless of its having been cycled well. We don't know why. I also buy one or two extra neons each time (eg. 6 when I want to end up with 4) because they are notorious for a couple dying in transit (very very sensitive to moves) and luckily if none of them die they are a small bioload and I haven't exceeded my plan by that much, lol. Do some searches on Pandas, you may know as much as me!
~~waterdrop~~
