Starting over with Zebra Danios...

[chizukan]

Hi I'm Cheska, and my family finally bought a tank after almost 15 years since the last we owned fish back home in the Philippines. But it's proving much harder than we last remembered so I would love to get as much help as possible!!
Had originally bought a 10 gallon when my friend and I won some goldfish but they died a week later. Then had more bad luck with tetras we bought after.
We did a water change and have left the tank running the past 2 weeks. We have a live plant and some moss decorating the tank.
The water temperature is usually bw 74-78F. The water tests have shown no ammonia, nitrate and nitrite. The pH is about 7.6 and is pretty hard water. I tried balancing it before but these numbers have been constant the past week.
Today my dad bought 5 zebra danios and I made sure to add some quick start & stress coat when I added the fish. Also carefully acclimated them and netted them into the tank.
Maybe I am just paranoid after the past two times we tried adding fish, but the danios are only swimming near the surface. They are not gasping for air but just swim near the surface all together, they won't seem to go below and swim around. Is this normal? Anything I should do?

 

[plantnoob]

Danios do mostly swim near the surface. But that said, your ammonia levels will soon increase. You will go through what is called a "fish-in cycling". The ammonia levels in your tank remained at zero when you started to run it was because of the absence of fish, which produce the ammonia. A better way of doing it would have been the "fishless cycling" method, where your tank is cycled (growing beneficial bacteria that convert harmful ammonia into harmless nitrates) using store bought ammonia. The zebra danios are hardy fish and may survive this cycling process, but you need to be regular and consistent with water changes as the ammonia and nitrite levels start to spike. Please read the instructions in this forum (sticky thread at the top) about the cycling process.

Good luck.


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[chizukan]

Danios do mostly swim near the surface. But that said, your ammonia levels will soon increase. You will go through what is called a "fish-in cycling". The ammonia levels in your tank remained at zero when you started to run it was because of the absence of fish, which produce the ammonia. A better way of doing it would have been the "fishless cycling" method, where your tank is cycled (growing beneficial bacteria that convert harmful ammonia into harmless nitrates) using store bought ammonia. The zebra danios are hardy fish and may survive this cycling process, but you need to be regular and consistent with water changes as the ammonia and nitrite levels start to spike. Please read the instructions in this forum (sticky thread at the top) about the cycling process.

Good luck.


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Thank you very much! You're right I only recently learned I had to add in ammonia to the fishless cycle but I guess it's too late now haha. The lfs workers never mentioned it, only kept asking for our water test, but I should have known better.

Question though, we had fish in the tank before so did the cycling from that time start over when the tank was empty for about 3 weeks? We did WC but left a little but of water from that previous time.

Will definitely keep a close eye on the water & fishs' conditions.
When we woke up this morning the danios had started swimming around the whole tank. They seem to be chasing each other a lot but I heard was normal behavior for them.
My only concern is that I can't tell if they have red spots near one of the danios' gills (possibly from ammonia?) or if its just the coloring from the light because they look slightly pinkish. It's hard to see when they zoom by too quickly.

 

[plantnoob]

Probably nothing from ammonia yet since you said your tank was reading zero earlier. Did you replace your filter media since your other fish died? It's the filter media and other solid surfaces that the bacteria live in/on. If you left that, your cycling process may be much faster. The water from before helps a bit too.


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[chizukan]

Probably nothing from ammonia yet since you said your tank was reading zero earlier. Did you replace your filter media since your other fish died? It's the filter media and other solid surfaces that the bacteria live in/on. If you left that, your cycling process may be much faster. The water from before helps a bit too.


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Hmm, I believe we changed the filter when my parents did the water change. So most probably we don't have that good bacteria anymore. Will definitely be on the look out for when the ammonia and nitrite start spiking. When that does start though, is simply doing water changes enough to lessen it? Do I need to add anything?

Again, thank you for all your help! My family and I were clueless as to what to do and am sure we did a lot of things wrong, but I'm definitely learning a lot and don't feel as confused about restarting this tank.

 

[plantnoob]

Read the sticky thread in this forum about cycling after you have fish.


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