Revalations

Hello, Not good news I am afraid. last night all my 4 neons were swimming perfectly fine. Woke up and I notice one neon was stuck to the filter- i assumed it was lodged between the tank wall and the filter, so i moved the filter over away from the wall and it was still stuck on. The fishes gills were moving! I switched off the filter and the fish floated away barely alive.
Went to school.
Came back early.
Checked on fish tank.
2 neons swimming around. Did the maths... Another neon must have become ill rapidly.
1 neon was on the side of the filter-gills not moving. 2 neons had become rapidly sick and died in the space of 12 hours.
2 more neons still surving. Something is picking them off one by one.
The whitespot treatment couldn't work any less even it it tried.
So, I have come to the conclusion that I need to put the other two fishes to sleep, althouh they seem fine they are gonna get sick like the other three fish did.
Im really sorry but I cannot take the other two dead fishes out of the tank. I can't stand dead animals It makes me go funny , so I'll wait till my mum gets back.
Im going to start the tank all over again. A waste of £20 but it's experence.
Im going to cycle it properly and plant it again and buy a water testing kit. Then start with a couple of shrimp to see whats happening
Ill keep you posted on that though!
Btw. can you put sand in a tropical set up> And if yes, when you use a gravel cleaner wil the sand fall back to the bottom or get sucked up?

you can use sand or gravel, its personal preference. But yes, gravel vacs can sometimes suck up your sand

aquanovice, a couple of things occur to me, hope you dont mind me mentioning them.

It's a real shame that you have had such a start to keeping fish, but I wonder if it is necessary to kill apparently healthy fish.

Have you been doing daily large water changes - at least 50%?

Have you tested your tank water or taken the water to the fish shop and asked them to do it for you?.

How long have you got to go with the whitespot treatment? Have any of your surviving fish still got signs of the disease - whitespots, rubbing themselves on gravel or ornaments?

It could be that it is not the ich that is killing your fish, but poor water quality, and that is easily rectified by doing water changes.

I agree with brb, aquanovice, give that a try if you havent already and see what happens. You might not have to start from scratch.

As for th sand, yes you can put ssand in a tropical tank, but you have to be careful of a couple of things. Dont get coral sand or it will mess up your ph. You can get pockets of gas building up in the sand and to avoid this you have to stir the sand up a bit every week.

As for the gravle vac, you clean sand by just holding the vac a little above the surface, not digging it in like you do with gravel.

All my neons were apparntly healthy. But then they just die within the space of a night or so. I have two fish left. I have been treating them for white spot going up to a week using the strongest and best stuff the pet shop have and they are still infesting with white spots.
I dont know what do.
I really am trying to get a water testing kit but I can only get it at the week end
I will do daily water changes and wait till the week end and see what happens.

Grab a test kit and post the stats. I have sand and i dont vac. I just give it a good stir I think it looks more natural