neon tetras? N.T.D or excessively stressed??

[Mad Professor]

Now back to my 44 gallon now.. anyways...
I did my weekly maintenance on saturday.. and tested the water on sunday.. and everything checkback fine except for the ph which was at 7.6
and the temps at 78...
now I have already lost one neon.. and I can't find his body.... I still have 7 left... all of them go pale white and the school breaks up and scatters all over the tank... but after a while the color comes back and the go back into a group... and they seem to do it often.. like every couple of hours..
so I was wondering if my neons have Neon Tetra Disease or are they are excessively stressed??
now to think of the missing one.. I think he got into the filters.. or he stressed out and went into shock and I guess my catfish used him as dinner.. they have been very active lately..
I also have some guppies and one of the guppies didn't look so good either.. so its either temp or PH levels too high.. and you can blame the ph levels from the tap water....
so if they are stressed.. and its because of the ph and temps.. tell me how to reduce the ph and temps to safe normal levels..
thanks
MP.

 

[mattrox]

What is your tap water pH?

Don't try to fix the pH, too hard. Keep the pH stable. You need to know the pH of you tap water "straight out of the tap" and after sitting around to allow the CO2 levels to equilibrate. Once you know these two you know if you have to age your water so you have matching pH in your tank and water you are adding in.