Fish dying and coming back to life?

[Sean13]

Hi so I just got my tank all set up 2 days ago (my first one ever and already loving it!). It's a 5 gallon and I have 3 neon tetras, 3 rosy tetras and one peppered cory.
They are all doing great and are active and appear healthy! They will be in this tank for about another month or two till I'm getting a 30 gallon tank.

My question is, well more of a story ending with a question, is this. When I brought home my fish the tanks temperature was 63 degrees farenheit. But when i put my neons in after about 30 seconds they over turned and sank and appeared dead. After the heat really picked up about 30 minutes later and the temp reached 70 I was about to scoop them out and flush them after laying there and not moving but when I touched them with the net all 3 started swimming! When it reached 75 I added the others and they are now all perfectly fine and healthy as i said!

My question is to get to the point, what happened to the neons?? Was it to cold so their systems shut down till it was warm or are they sick?

Thanks guys!

 

[Hholly]

Please read this. It will help a lot. Good luck!
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/guide-to-starting-a-freshwater-aquarium/

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/fishin-cycling-step-dark-side/

 

[Wiggles24]

Fish CAN pass out from shock. That's likely what happened

 

[librarygirl]

Probably was the temp shock; ideally the tank would have been brought up to temp prior to adding fish. I had some corys shipped to me a while ago and the heat pack failed in transit; when I got them they all appeared frozen and dead. I acclimated them anyway and as the warmer water was introduced they all came back to life and they're still doing well now.

Read the links Hholly gave you though; with that many fish in a new 5 gal tank you're going to have toxin issues pretty quickly as you're now doing a fish-in cycle. Here's another good guide for you: I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! - Aquarium Advice

 

[Scottyhorse]

Unfortunately, you didn't cycle your tank, and you have picked the wrong fish for your tank.

But to answer your question, when fish are stressed they will 'lock up' is what looks like, but after they aren't so scared they will be okay.