# Went a bit nuts purchasing zebra danios



## iskandarreza (Jul 4, 2011)

Ok I've got a bit of a problem here. I was out on a tour of the LFS's in my area looking for Zebra Danios. For some reason everywhere was out of stock of the regular type of zebras; they were mostly carrying the pinkish/reddish ones. 

Anyway I found one place that carries them. They were in good condition but the young daughter of the proprietor was basically abusing them by not catching them gently when I asked for a dozen of them (for my 15gal planted). It upset me and my wife so much we decided to catch another 10 zebras ourselves. 

So now I've got 22 zebra danios in a 15 gallon planted/hardscaped tank that already has 2 corydoras sterbai, 5 corydoras shultzei and 4 corydoras aeneus.

I'm overstocked, aren't I? I've got an Eheim 2215 and I'm using DIY CO2. Tank temperature is 80 degrees, pH 7.0, GH20, KH20 (at least that was what it was before the danios came in). On the plus side the cory's are more active and visible. 

Here's a pic, sorry about the quality. 











Is it overcrowded or do they have enough space? Should I move some to another tank?


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

the biggest thing to me for overstocking is making sure you have the bio-filtration to deal with the bio-load. 1 inch/gal seems to be an old outdated guide to go by and its much better to go with if the fish seem healthy, aren't attacking each other, you're not getting any spikes in ammonia or anything because your filtration is enough, etc. Obviously a 10" fish in a 15" long tank isn't a good thing but lots of small fish who seem happy and are eating, etc usually is good enough for me.


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## Naekuh (Oct 19, 2011)

iskandarreza said:


> For some reason everywhere was out of stock of the regular type of zebras; they were mostly carrying the pinkish/reddish ones.


are you talking about the glolight zebras? :icon_eek:
if those are glow lights... they glow in the dark... did u know that?  

Man i wish they werent ban'd in my state. 
Stupid liberal Californians...


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## [email protected] (Jul 17, 2008)

With a healthy 2215 I think you're in decent shape fish wise.


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## epiphany (Oct 8, 2011)

If you're worried you could set up a sponge filter as well for some added biological filtration.


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## Dgup (Jul 5, 2011)

Just be more on top of changing the water and make sure your filtration is up to par imo.

I am not an expert and new to this hobby, but I've kept my guppies in various non tanks for over 6 years (now mostly endler). Here is my 10 Gallon tank that was not planted just 4 months ago.
Currently has 35 endler/guppies and about 20 babies in addition to 2 Platys, so 57 fish and 10 Cherry Shrimp. 2 Otos were added a month ago.
No CO2, no excel, no dosing, nothing but 2 CFL spiral bulbs. Just trims and water changes with a HOB filter.
It's more work, but you can get a lot out of it. I just need to eventually scape the darn thing.


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## wendyjo (Feb 20, 2009)

Danios are very active fish and I think that is too many for a 15g tank. It's do-able filtration wise, but I think it's gonna be too crowded space wise.


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## iskandarreza (Jul 4, 2011)

Yeah it does seems too busy; it's a riot in there. I checked the water params on the 15gal this morning and it wasn't very good. No ammonia but nitrite spiked a bit and nitrates are off the charts, so are phosphates. The cories are agitated and started getting irritable, especially the bronze cories; it keeps on hassling all the other cories and all of them go up for gulps of water at the top far too often. And now I've got a sudden bloom of brown algae now  so I did a 30% WC.

I moved 10 of the danios to my 10g tank this afternoon, not sure if that's gonna be better -- the tank already has five 3.5" flying foxes, a wild female guppy (was a rescued feeder fish) and a fancy male guppy plus one young 4" pleco. Hopefully that wouldn't mess up the balance in that tank. It's using a Shiruba XB303 canister filter rated at 95gal/hr, params all normal before I moved the zebras. I'll check the params tomorrow to see if there'd be any potential problems.

Anyway now I've got a serious brown algae problem. I think it's because the agitated cories disturbed my soil and kicked up quite a bit of clay into the water column. I'm using MTS, maybe that's why. It's my first time doing a planted tank with soil, previously it was just gravel with a thin layer of Sera FloreDepot at the bottom. Aquasoil is way beyond my budget currently.

Here are pictures of the damage:

Water is very murky now. I went out and bought a new 100g pack of Purigen, not sure if that'll help, but it did wonders in taking the yellow out of my 8g tank's water.










A close-up of the carpet grass (what species is that by the way?). Look at all that stringy brown crap growing on it. Sigh...










My java moss is ruined :icon_cry:










It's even growing on the lava rock










And even on the leaves of plants










What can I do to clear this infestation quickly? Daily water changes? I'm guessing it's to do with the clay/silica suspended in the water. Was no problem when the cories were not agitated. Does calcium content contribute to the problem? My tap water has way too much calcium in it, it's KH20 and GH15 straight out of the tap.


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

The thing with danios is that they are typically recommended for a 3 foot tank minimum. I know they seemed to run out of swimming space in my two foot 20H... They are so fast and active.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk


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## galabar (Oct 19, 2011)

Probably adding a few danios a week would be better. I'm guessing that the 15 can handle 22 of them, but not all at once.


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## Seedreemer (Sep 28, 2008)

Being a fish rescuer myself I understand your plight. Good for you. 

I'd say this is the perfect excuse to set up a larger tank.


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## iskandarreza (Jul 4, 2011)

I'm planning on getting a 6 foot tank within the next 18 months, I'll be transferring all the zebras there when it is set up. 

After moving 10 zebras from the 15g to the well established unscaped 10g, the fish in both tanks seem much happier. The flying foxes in the 10g are less timid. I think zebras generally make other fish bolder because they are so carefree. 

The params in the 15g have changed, nitrites 0, nitrates 0 and ammonia 0. Phosphates dropped from 40 to 20 after the water change. I'm still having brown algae/diatom problems. But the water is not so murky now though it's still a bit cloudy. 




















It's all over the java moss and I've got quite a bit of those in the tank. Will the cory cats eat it? I was thinking of getting 3 Otos, but I read that they require clean water that's on the soft side. My water is still high in phosphates and the kH and GH are both 20. I bought some Sera Super Peat and put it in the filter. How long does it take for this to work? Is the effect cancelled by the Purigen?


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## iskandarreza (Jul 4, 2011)

A bit of an update: I've sent 14 danios to my favourite LFS; I know they'll take care of it well because my Clown Barb is still there and looking even more striking.

Anyway, it was not easy catching the danios. They're bloody fast!

So my stocking in the 15g is now as follows:

8 Zebra Danios
5 Three-lined Corys
4 Bronze Corys
2 Sterbai Corys

Is that ok or is it still overstocked? Can I add a betta there?


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## wendyjo (Feb 20, 2009)

I would leave it as it is.


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## iskandarreza (Jul 4, 2011)

Okay so no betta? Just wanted to add a splash of colour to the tank. 

Another concern I have is that I think the male to female ratio of the danios is not really good. There's 3 females and 5 males. Would this be a problem?


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## Fishly (Jan 8, 2010)

If you want color, a male platy would probably be better than a betta. Bettas like peace and quiet, so your danios would probably be too disturbing.

If you want to trade out some cories, you could probably add some colorful schooling fish.


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## Jadenlea (Sep 15, 2011)

Ive been following your strings since you bought all those danios. I think you should just leave your tank be for a few weeks and let it settle down. You keep making messes


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## iskandarreza (Jul 4, 2011)

Jadenlea said:


> Ive been following your strings since you bought all those danios. I think you should just leave your tank be for a few weeks and let it settle down. You keep making messes


LoL yeah! That's what I've decided too haha. Not gonna change the fish stocking. 8 Danios and 11 Cories are fine. Can't add any more, but that's alright. 

But I do want more colour in the 15g tank, so I decided to pull out my Amazon swords and replace them with the H. Polysperma variants that were still in their pots from the 10g. There's my splash of colour. Problem solved roud:


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## Eldachleich (Jul 9, 2011)

Naekuh said:


> are you talking about the glolight zebras? :icon_eek:
> if those are glow lights... they glow in the dark... did u know that?
> 
> Man i wish they werent ban'd in my state.
> Stupid liberal Californians...


Theres totally a fish shop in LA that carries them lol... Owned by a little Chinese man.


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

I love platys. lots of yellows, red, orange, black and white combos of them. i bought 3 from the LFS and 2 days later, one gave birth and I have like 15+ fry swimming around in there.


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## rollinghills (Sep 19, 2011)

iskandarreza said:


> Okay so no betta? Just wanted to add a splash of colour to the tank.
> 
> Another concern I have is that I think the male to female ratio of the danios is not really good. There's 3 females and 5 males. Would this be a problem?


The ratio should be fine. I have 2 male Zebras, 1 male glofish and only 1 female glofish (zebra and glofish are genetically identical by the way.) Not a problem. They will just have to fight a little harder for the lady :biggrin:

Now I have glofish with zebra danio stripes. :biggrin:


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## iskandarreza (Jul 4, 2011)

rollinghills said:


> Now I have glofish with zebra danio stripes. :biggrin:


Really? That's amazing! Can you post some pics?


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## rollinghills (Sep 19, 2011)

They are still very small. Maybe half the size of an Endler and are still in the breeder box so it's difficult to get a good shot. Hope these are good enough you can see the blue stripes.


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