Please Help! Zebra Danios are sick.

[Spottington]

Hello Everyone, I am new to the hobby and I need help. I have a new 10g freshwater tank, stocked with some zebra danios, and they aren't doing well. One has already died, and another is not looking well.

The first fish to get sick started acting strange a few days ago. The other danios were very active, eating well, swimming around the entire tank. This one stayed in one spot, swam back and forth, and was not as enthusiastic about food. A day later, it had a white patch near it's tail. The next day, it was floating around with it's head at the surface, and tail strait down. I decided to put it down, this was yesterday.

Today I noticed another danio was acting the same as the first, swimming back and forth by itself. I noticed it has a white spot near it's mouth, with what looks like a thin white hair hanging down from it. I don't wanna lose this one too!

My setup is as follows:
10g freshwater tank
Set up 5 days ago, stocked 4 days ago.
Stocked with 6 Zebra danio, two anacharis plants, one moneywort plant
Temp: 78 degrees F
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm

Since these water readings were taken, I did a 25% water change, and raised the temperature (slowly) to about 80 degrees, in an attempt to kill any ich if that was indeed the culprit.

Help!

 

[Caliban07]

If you didn't use sponge media from a filter in an established tank when you set it up, you haven't cycled the tank.

I won't go into too much detail about the cycle. You can easily find it on google. It's called the nitrogen cycle. It involves building up colonies of friendly bacteria that consume toxins that organic matter and your fish create.
The first toxin that exists in the cycle is ammonia and this is the most toxic part. The bacteria break this down. Before it can harm your fish.

Since you don't have a big enough colony of bacteria to break these down toxins from uneaten food, fish waste and fish respiration have risen to damaging levels. Unfortunately this burns the fishes gills and they struggle to breathe. Hence gasping for air at the surface. Danios also give out a lot of waste.

The white stringy patches sounds like a fungus. The fungus (I've read) are always present in our tanks but is an opportunist. It usually breaks out when a fishes slime coat has been damaged or when a fishes immune system is down as a result of stress, which your fish will definitely be. This fungus could be a secondary effect.

Don't worry. your not the first to bypass the cycle and won't be the last. I've done it before now.

Best thing to do is order or buy an API liquid test kit soon as and test for ammonia.

In the meantime you most change more water to dilute the ammonia with fresh. Do two 50% water changes then do 50% every day till your test kit arrives.

Feed very lightly and skip feeding every other day.

Just a side note. Most will say that your tank is too small for danios.

 

[Caliban07]

Sorry you do have a test kit. Is it a liquid tester or strips? Strips are notoriously inaccurate. Although I have never used them.

 

[Spottington]

Thanks for the reply, Caliban. I do have an API liquid test kit, and I have been using it every day. Yesterday was the first day I saw any of the levels for ammonia, nitrite or nitrate at anything but zero. I am going to replace the water every day, as you suggested. Unfortunately I found out too late about cycling, I am now doing everything I can to correct this mistake.

I lost the second Danio today. Any more help from anyone would be appreciated, I don't want to lose any more!

 

[Caliban07]

You're welcome. All I can suggest is to keep testing and keep ammonia below 0.25ppm by water changes. it's never good to lose fish but the only saving grace is that the bioload has been reduced. You might be able to save the remaining fish but their lifespan may have been shortened.

Since ammonia is only .25 (although could have been a lot higher before your water change) go back to the white patches. See if you can take pictures for people more experienced in fish illness to identify. It may be a combination of ammonia poisoning and a disease.

 

[Spottington]

I'm keeping on top of water changes, as reccomended, and my remaining Danios look good. The two that died had white-ish spots on them. The first had a white patch by the tail, the second had a white spot near the mouth. Unfortunately I have no way of getting a good picture.

 

[rmiller]

I'm sure by now you've learned about cycling, but in case you have questions here's a great article that may help you out.

I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! - Aquarium Advice

Zebra Danios are not really a good fit for a 10 gallon tank. They are a very active fish and need a longer tank to be able to stretch their fins. If this were my tank, I would take the danios back to the store and start a fishless cycle while researching what fish will thrive in the tank.