Zebra and Leopard Danios

[Kryten]

I have just put 4 zebra danios in a newly cycled tank. One died last night as a result of an injury it must have picked up somewhere (the pet shop wouldn't admit to it). The other three seem to have a bit of rivalry going on though

The two bigger danios seem to chase the smaller. Someone has suggested that this may be that I have three males in the same tank in

Will I be okay to add two female leopard danios, or will I have to add a couple of female zebra danios. Any help would be much appreciated, as I love the zebra, but would like to spice it up a bit and see if the leopard and zebra danios get on

 

[Macquatic]

Zebras & leopards will be fine together.

Just be careful not to stock your tank too quickly, you will end up with problems and dead fish.
Your filter takes quite a number of weeks to mature, so only add a couple of fish at a time every 2 weeks or so. Mac.

 

[Kryten]

Thanks for that, they seem to be fine at the moment. I am keeping an eye on my 2 platys, and am doing dauly testing of the water at the moment, as I want to get a nice community tank set up without to many problems.

The main thing that I wanted to find out was, will adding a couple of female leopard danios help to calm down the male zebras. I know they will get along fine though!

 

[elgecko]

I had zebras for a while. I got rid of them because they were always chasing my hatchets around. They chase each other around also. From my observations they do not hurt other fish or themselves, they are just very active fish.

 

[Josh Q]

I have 2 zebra danios and 6 leopord danios in a community tank and they chase each other around. If you have 6 or more than they should chase each other instead of other tankmates.
-Josh

 

[Waterloo Kid]

I have 10 zebra danios and have noticed that the bigger fish are the females and the smalleer the males. Also the females are rounder and more silvered than the males. When they fight they tend to circle each other side on with fins erect, size each other up and then have a quick tussle before they split. No harm has ever been done except for a split fin once. The fighting may be an attempt to sort out the pecking order and could well calm down in a while.

You should keep a few more than 3 danios as they like company and more fish will dilute the aggression. Watch that you don't over-stock your new tank though! Personnally I'd stick with just zebras at the moment as I believe that a lot of a few species of fish give a better display than a few of a lot of species, especially with shoaling fish. They also like being with their own kind. For instance, when stocking tetras you should keep at least 6 of each type of tetra. One glowlight, one neon, one cardinal, one head and tail light and one black tetra isn't a six strong shoal, it's six one fish shoals!! (yeah, yeah, I know, one fish doesn't make a shoal). The fish will not be happy even if they do stick together in a loose shoal. There is talk however that the zebra and leopard are infact very closely related, if not the same fish with different markings! You might be OK with them.