my tank finished its cycle last weekend, and so on Wednesday my Danios returned from the "holiday tank" to the main tank.

on Friday i could only see 4 of the 5, and was stumped. I did a 20% water change today to check the whole regime and make sure i remembered everything that Miss Wiggle and Waterdrop had told me.

I do have 3 questions - so i'll just write the full background here )

I squeezed the filter pads in tank water like you would a favoured old relative on the shoulder,

hoovered the gravel to the best of my ability - the garish pattern is still there, but i can see it blurring in a couple of months.

cleaned rocks and stuff (in tank water) filled up the tank with de-chlor water and then added the fry (in a net)

water tested 2 hours later:
ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10

when i was cleaning ornaments and stuff, I was expecting to come across his body, but must have disturbed the danios who was jammed somewhere. He has a square pale patch just behind and on one side of his head. I think the brown scales/slime has been rubbed off and i don't want him to pass on anything to the others.

He seems ok, isn't goinbg to the surface any more than the others. isn't swimming strangely.

any ideas?

Regards

Simon

Hi Simon,

Simply amazing you kept the gravel pattern together Sounds like your transition went ok - a bit of a risk there to do the first filter squeeze right at the same time! But it sounds like you did it so gently that you didn't get a micro-cycle.

No idea what to say about mr bald patch - if it seems to stay serious you might put in a query with Wilder over in the emergencies section - I believe she's one of the long-time fishy health expert observers over there...

But one other comment.. it doesn't take much imagination to realize that zebras are more or less a variant on minnows and as such their biological footprint in the world is, I would say, somewhat more all about survival of the population as a whole than it is about individuals (treading heretical ground here in the midst of animal lovers.. not that all of us animals are not subject to these facts of eternity, ha!) ..but in the grand scheme of things, as the giant shoals of danios must move about in their native waters, I would imagine quite a few get lost around the edges. So I might suggest to you that it can be surprising, the inability to note individual minnow identity when observed by little human nippers, and that fresh little minnows might sometimes need to play a role if you get my drift (such as if bald patches seem to get too bad...)

~~wd~~