Concerned about my new zebra danios

[Japola44]

So, today i got 5 zebra danios to put in my 20 [acronym:b0133907bb="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b0133907bb]. They are all swimming about like normal except one, but i am not surprised by this. What worries me is that one of them looks like it is pregnant. My first thought was well they must be livebarers, i googled it and there not. I just fed them and some of them got a big belly from snatching up blood worms as the sank ot the bottom, but this is quite a large protusion from its stomach. I didn't notice it when i first got them. So is it possible that it could have gotten a bite of the ghost shrimp i put in the tank for my bgk? I would post this in fish illnesses, but the fish doesn't seem to be acting ill at all, and in fact is the only one looking fully colored. Is another possiblity that the fish is female and about to lay eggs? Please let me know what you think, hopefully tomorrow i can get some pictures

[Skyrmir]

Most likely it's a female full of eggs. As long as the fish is swimming ok and no scales are sticking up it should be fine. I have a couple females that look like this, seems to mainly be the older ones. Pretty much once they get going, danio's are always about to lay eggs. I can spray out my filter on any day of the week and have danio fry swimming in the water the next day.

If they are regular danio's that haven't been custom bred to some odd shade, then the females are decidedly silver/black and the males are gold/black. With the amount of experimentation done on Danio's though it's sometimes hard to tell. I have a few grey danio's that I'm pretty sure are male, but they'd be the only ones that really know for sure. You also have to catch them at the right light angle to really see the difference, but as they age it gets more obvious.

[pooka37]

i worked in a fish store for a long time, and zebra danios were probably the most common fish to have deformites. one average each shipment had a least 10-20 deformed fish that behaved normally and were healthy. they would often have crooked spines and deformed tails, and some had the bulging belly you're talking about. it didn't seem to effect them, other then making it a little harder to swim and keep up with the others.

[Japola44]

Well this morning the one that wasn't swimming had passed away in the night. He was obviously defromed his bottom jaw was rather large and didnt close completly.
Any way i looked at them before i feed them and it apeared they had all gone back to there normal sizes except the one, but she ( i am guessing) was just a little bit bigger than the rest. After i feed them she got huge back to her pregnant about to explode look. So my guess would be just an over active food eater. I also noticed one of them had some wiskers? Just two, but it deffinatly does. Is this normal? I think petsmart just had an weird batch of fish. Any way they are all happy looking and swiming like crazy.

what kind of fish would be a good one to make them school? They are just zipping around the tank by themsleves and I just like the look of them schooling better.

[Skyrmir]

Danio's have whiskers naturally, they're just hard to see most of the time. Not sure on getting them to school actually. Mine don't usualy school so much as happen to hang out together. I might be worried that if something did get them to schooling, they'd be pretty stressed.

[tracygh]

I have a couple of tanks of zebra danios, and am actually on my second breeding batch. The females get so full of eggs that they look like lego blocks with fins.
I am on my second batch of eggs/fry just now, and the 30 [acronym:add4d6e4de="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:add4d6e4de] tank I have them in looks from a distance to have cloudy water, but as you get closer, you can see all the tiny fry. There must be three or four hundred in there. And yup, the s are getting big again already.
Oh yeah, and they do have whiskers too [acronym:add4d6e4de="Laughing out loud"]LOL[/acronym:add4d6e4de].
The biggest deformities I have seen on danios are humped backs/bent spines. I have never seen a big belly that wasn't a result of eggs.
Do ou plan on encouraging the breeding process, or just leiing nature take it's course?

Tracy

[Rocket2001]

I've kept Zebra Danios also and have found if you over feed them the will get extremly fat quickly but will return to size after a few day (as with most fish)

[bunebop]

Originally Posted by Skyrmir

Most likely it's a female full of eggs. As long as the fish is swimming ok and no scales are sticking up it should be fine. I have a couple females that look like this, seems to mainly be the older ones. Pretty much once they get going, danio's are always about to lay eggs. I can spray out my filter on any day of the week and have danio fry swimming in the water the next day.

If they are regular danio's that haven't been custom bred to some odd shade, then the females are decidedly silver/black and the males are gold/black. With the amount of experimentation done on Danio's though it's sometimes hard to tell. I have a few grey danio's that I'm pretty sure are male, but they'd be the only ones that really know for sure. You also have to catch them at the right light angle to really see the difference, but as they age it gets more obvious.

I don't suppose you have a picture of a pregnant one do you? I think I have a pregnant one... but (s)he has been this way for over a year and I would have thought she'd have laid the eggs... but she always has the huge bulge and I've never seen a baby fish. Not sure what's up with that.

[Japola44]

i don't plan on breeding them. Its hard to not over feed the lil guys I always feed them first but when i dump the blodworms in for my BGK they can't help but stuff their faces with yummy worms haha thanks for your help guys!