Advice Needed On My Fat Danio!

lyolya · Apr 9, 2011

Hi guys.

I'm starting a 20 gallon tank, and it's been couple of weeks now. I got 4 danios, and they seem to be happy, chasing eash other all the time.

The fish store owner i got fishies from told me that the danios with londer tails are the males and the ones with shorter tales are the females. So, based on that I got 3 females and 1 male.

My male got fat recently. his belly is basically twice as big as of the other fish. He is active, looks happy, but eats like crazy. He also developed one dark patch-like line on the side of the body (kinda below the gill, in the beginning of the belly), and dark triangle on the end of the under-belly . The triangle could be poop, but i don't know about the little line(it seems to be under the scales).

If you'r wondering about my water, i seem to be heading for the nitrite spike. I did like a 25% water change yesterday and today the nitrite was around 3.0 ppm, nitrate around 10 ppm, hardness 100, alkalinity 100 ppm, and ph of like 7.8. I got the strip tests, so i'm comparing to the color charts.
I gots 2 filters running, capacity of 20 gal each. one filter runs the cartriges and the second one i filled comlpletely with chemi-pure filter medium.

Oh, and lastly, the danios are pink with yellow ends on the fins.

So, any help with my male (is it even a male?) and even cycling is greatly appreciated.

MBOU · Apr 9, 2011

Length of the tail and fins is nothing to do with sex as you can get longfinned and shortfinned variations of most danios

Shorter fatter bodies are female, long slim bodies are males, thats the general rule...

Unless the fish is obviously sick or the scales are sticking out in a pineapple/spikey way (dropsy), i wouldnt worry about it! Id maybe assume it was actually a female.

EDIT: your danios are pink!? Are they GM zebra danios (the unnatural dyed pink kind) or some other species like Glowlight danios?

fluttermoth · Apr 9, 2011

Nitrite is extremely poisonous to fish. A level of 3ppm is highly toxic and you need to be doing a few large water changes with warm, dechlorinated water to bring it down to zero.

Apart from that I'd agree with MBOU's post, except to say that 'Glofish', the GM danios, are not dyed. You might not agree with the genetic modification of fish on moral grounds, or like the results, but the process does no actual harm to the fish at all, unlike dying.

There is lots of info on cycling in the beginner's resource centre here; http

/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/ which should help you, but feel free to ask any questions you might have, Fish-in cycling can take a good few weeks and will entail large, frequent water changes, so I hope you're prepared with plenty of buckets and dechlorinator!

lyolya · Apr 9, 2011

fluttermoth,
oh, i guess i'm gonna go do another water change. i thought 3 ppm is "stress" level, but not too bad considering the tank is cycling.

also, idk, yesterday when i was doing the water change i put the strip in the new water to see if the chlorine was gone, and noticed some level of nitrite already in the water. is that normal?

also, ppl say u gotta raise the temperature to warm, well, i only got one heater that's in the tank. i just fill the bucket with roughly same temp water and that's that. is that ok?

MBOU,

huh, really? hmmmmmm, i guess i'll keep lookin then to see which ones are shorter n fatter as they grow. 3 of them are already like inch and a half though and they look roughly the same.
and idk, the owner just said they were pink danios. they don't seem to glow tho. i'm new to all this fish stuff, so i don't think i'm the best judge to tell you for sure what they are. i can try to attach a pic thoough if you like.

fluttermoth · Apr 9, 2011

lyolya said:
fluttermoth,
oh, i guess i'm gonna go do another water change. i thought 3 ppm is "stress" level, but not too bad considering the tank is cycling.
also, idk, yesterday when i was doing the water change i put the strip in the new water to see if the chlorine was gone, and noticed some level of nitrite already in the water. is that normal?

There's no level of ammonia or nitrite that is safe. The paper strips are notoriously inaccurate which is probably why they're showing some nitrite in your new water. However, if they're reading 3ppm in the tank then, with fish in, you can't risk leaving it as the levels will be elevated even if your test isn't as accurate as it could be.
If you can afford to get yourself a liquid test kit like the API or Nutrafin I'd highly recommend it. It'll be worth its weight in gold during a fish-in cycle.
Your cycle will continue with levels of ammonia and nitrite that are too low to register on the tests, though it will take longer; that's why fish-in cycles take longer than fishless.

also, ppl say u gotta raise the temperature to warm, well, i only got one heater that's in the tank. i just fill the bucket with roughly same temp water and that's that. is that ok?

You can use hot water from your hot tap or from the kettle to get the new water up to temperature.

MBOU,

huh, really? hmmmmmm, i guess i'll keep lookin then to see which ones are shorter n fatter as they grow. 3 of them are already like inch and a half though and they look roughly the same.
and idk, the owner just said they were pink danios. they don't seem to glow tho. i'm new to all this fish stuff, so i don't think i'm the best judge to tell you for sure what they are. i can try to attach a pic thoough if you like.

Even the Glofish glow only under UV light, as far as I know, but I'm in the UK and they're banned here.
Pics would be great so we can identify them properly for you. They could just be albino zebras.

lyolya · Apr 10, 2011

oh wow, guys, exciting update. today around 10am i woke up and discovered my fish mating in the rocks! i say this bc i saw one egg rise up in the water.
it's incredible considering my tank is cycling, but fish are comfy enough for that. Aaaand i think my fat male was actually a prego female lol

so, maybe like in an half hour i'll try to suck out some eggs and put them in some container (imagine how i'm unprepared for this).
so if u guys have any advice on how to try to fight for the babie's lives plz let me know!

fluttermoth,

thanks for all ur advice, i actually haven't thought of pouring in hotter water and let in cool down! and i'll def post some pics today or tomorrow!

lyolya · Apr 10, 2011

they hatched!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my first fry ever!

i set up a small 5 gal tank w a small filter and heater, aaaand i put the eggs that i sucked out in a net breeder there. and now i see the little babies!

i also see some fry in my 20 gal between glass and gravel. any suggestions what can i do about that?

i'm so excited!

i want them all to survivvvee

fluttermoth · Apr 10, 2011

Gosh! Well done!

I must warn you; danio fry are quite hard to rear as they are so tiny. However, you do have a few days before they become free swimming (they hatch out with the yolk from their egg still attached which they live on for three or four days), so you need to get sorted with some food as soon as possible.

If it's sunny where you are, or you have access to a pond or water butt, green water is great; there will be loads of micro organisms in there. Put a bucket of an aquatic plant like cabomba or elodea out side in the sun and when you see the babies swimming about, pop it in the tank. Or you can get onto Ebay and buy a culture of microworms or go to your LFS and buy some powdered egglaying fry food (but the live foods are best)

Don't start feeding them until they're free swimming; you'll just pollute the water. Change some of the water (10 or 20%) every day.

The ones that are in the main tank; you can dip tube those out (get a tube; the one from your gravel cleaner will do; hold your thumb over one end, put the other end near the fry; take your thumb off and they'll shoot up the tube. Put your thumb back on the end and they'll stay in the tube so you can move them to your fry tank. Thumb off and they'll drop out :good: