Have Fun Keeping DANIOS in Your Fish Tank

Female individuum of Danio margaritatus.garitatus).
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Danios fish are great for beginners because they are easy to maintain. Due to their high energy level and mild temperament, Danios are an excellent choice for aquariums. They are normally found in freshwater rivers and in streams of Southeast Asia, and since they live in fast flowing streams, provide them enough space to move around and with a current from a power filter.

Several varieties of Danios fish are available and the most common among them is the Zebra Danio which can be easily identified by its horizontal stripes. Most of the species are brightly colored. Other varieties are Gold, Leopard, Blue, Giant, and Pearl. Two pairs of long barbels are present in them and they are characterized by horizontal stripes except in Black Barred Danio, Panther Danio and Glowlight Danio in which vertical bars can be seen.

Danios are playful and sociable and they live happily in the aquarium environment. Try to keep them in groups of more than 4. They get along with most aquarium fish. They can be kept along with Barbs, Rainbows, Clown or Yoyo Loaches, some varieties of catfish like Corydoras or Plecostomus Catfish and also with most of the Gouramis, even though they are smaller than Danios. I've found some or my smaller fish get intimidated by the always energetic Danios, and they will hide from them. They will chase each other and other fish continuously, but they don't attack

Danio kerri (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Occasionally, they nip their fins, most of the time by accident. They will eat eggs and other small fishes that fit into their mouths. Make sure you have a tight fitting lid because Danios are good jumpers. Danios are used in aquariums to distract other aggressive fish from fighting as they are even-tempered.

Danios are omnivorous and will eat a variety of foods. They can be satisfied with regular flake food, but they love to snack on bloodworms or brine shrimp once in a while. They are voracious eaters, so you should not put them with timid feeders.

My Zebra Danios get pregnant all the time, but since I don't intend to breed them, they just eat their eggs. So if you do intend to breed them, you should feed them with plenty of fresh foods, and remove the parents from the tank until the new fish are larger. These fish usually consume small aquatic insects, worms, crustaceans and plankton in the wild.

They can live in temperatures that range from 68-80ºF. But they can learn to thrive in an unheated tank.

Zebra, Gold, Pearl and Leopard Danios will normally grow to a maximum size 1.5 inches. But Giant Danios will grow up to five inches in length.

Whichever kind you choose, you will have a ball just watching them play all over the tank.

By Rebeca Rambal If you want to find more very useful information about setting up and maintaining your fish tank, please visit me at http://www.thefishtankplace.com Article Source: EzineArticles

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• Breeding ZEBRA DANIOS(aquarium-and-fish-care.blogspot.com)

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Tropical Fish Overview - DANIO

Photo  by Katty Fe 

Looking for a companion to your Bala Shark or another tropical fish? Then look no farther than Danios. These fish are tough, highly vigorous, and have a mild temper. These fish are great for your home aquarium and suggested to be your first fish.

You want one-quarter of an inch of gravel on the bottom of your tank, with the heater adjusted between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer you keep your fish, you can slowly adjust the temperature to a point to where you do not even need a heater.

When buying food for your new fish, it is recommended you use freeze dried worms and brine shrimp. Danios are a community fish and prefer to live in groups of a minimum of 6 fish.

These beautifully long, sleek and shiny fish are a wonderful addition to your aquarium. Danios originate in freshwater rivers and streams of Southeast Asia. These fish are becoming more widely known as new species have been found in Myanmar. They can grow between 4 cm to 15 cm and are not expected to live more than a few years at most.

The Danio are wonderful fish to have with other types of fish. They can be unruly and have a tendency to chase one another and your other fish. This tends to lead to nipping of fins, although most of the time it was an accident. They will eat any fish small enough to fit in their mouths.

When preparing your water, you need to make sure the pH balance is between 6.0 to 8.0, and the water hardness of 5.0 to 19.0, with a temperature difference of 68 to 80 degree Fahrenheit, however, cooler temperatures are preferable.

If you choose to breed your own Danios, you might want to arrange a smaller tank for the babies. Also remember that they like to scatter their eggs, which do not adhere to anything, and hatch within 2 to 3 days. Remember - their eggs make easy prey if there is not a heavy layer of marbles or Substrate plants.

Submitted by: Lee Dobbins About the Author: Lee Dobbins writes for Fish Tank Guide where you can learn about fish tank care and types of tropical fish such as Danios.  Source: www.isnare.com

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Breeding ZEBRA DANIOS

Danio rerio, better known as the zebrafish (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many fishkeepers sometimes get a little embarrassed when they admit that their first fish breeding was a livebearer, feeling that they, as fish keepers, didn't have very much to do with the event. Whilst this may be true to a certain extent, it nevertheless does mean that the fish had been kept in correct conditions and were sufficiently healthy to want to reproduce and this must be a reflection of their owner's skill in maintaining the aquarium over a period of time.

However, with an egg-laying species, the aquarist can have a great deal of control over what fish he wants to breed and, just as importantly, when.

It should be said here, that fish will breed whenever they choose inasmuch that should a ripe male and female encounter each other then they will probably spawn spontaneously in the aquarium anyway. Without the care and attention of the fishkeeper, the eggs from egg-scattering species especially will more likely than not be eaten by the other fish in the tank and no fry will be seen. The fry from egg-depositing fish stands a better chance as first of all their parents will prepare and defend a spawning site prior to spawning and also guard any subsequent fry afterward. Let's suppose you want to try your hand at breeding something deliberately and have taken the advice of many experienced fishkeepers by choosing that popular Cyprinid, the Zebra Danio.

First of all, we must ensure that the fish are 'in the mood' to breed rather than just put a male and female together and hope for the best. 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' is one way of putting it but, realistically, separating the would-be parents is based on a practical rather than emotional supposition.

It is possible that should you simply select a male and female and put them together to spawn then one of them might just have spawned without your knowledge; in which case, the attempt to spawn them would be fruitless.

By separating the sexes prior to spawning, you can ensure that they are in the best condition; feeding them copious amounts of quality food (including live food) will make the females fill with eggs. This conditioning process can take a couple of weeks or so. The best way to do it might be to put the female into the breeding tank first before introducing the well-fed male later.

Sexing the fish is fairly straightforward: the male fish is more slender than the female and if you look at a female, even when she is not full of eggs, there is a definite kink in the horizontal stripes along the body just to the rear of the dorsal fin.

Like all Cyprinids, the Zebra Danio is no respecter of new-laid eggs, including its own. There are several ways to prevent egg eating. Any method that separates the adult fish from reaching their newly-laid eggs is acceptable.

One popular method is to cover the bottom of the aquarium with a layer or two of glass marbles (the eggs fall between the marbles beyond the reach of the adults). Alternatively, you can use a bunch or two of dense plants in the spawning area: as the male chases the female into the plants, she releases the eggs which after fertilization fall into the dense plants away from the attention of the adults.

There is no reason why you cannot 'flock spawn' fish. If you have several Zebra Danios then separating all the females from all the males during the conditioning period should give you more Zebra Danio fry than you'd believe possible upon the adults' reunion! But there's still the problem of egg protection.

The answer is to drape a piece of fine netting across the entire water surface area of the spawning tank so that it hangs a few centimeters below the surface; weight the corners down with small pebbles. Now all that is needed is to introduce all the preconditioned fish (both sexes) into the water above the net.

When the males chase the females, any eggs that are released and fertilized then fall through the net into the tank beneath before the adults have time to realize what's going on. The eggs are safe! In order to return the adult fish to their previous aquarium all you do is lift out the net (take the pebbles out first!). The fish are caught all at once with no stress at all.

Meanwhile, the fertilized eggs are quietly hatching and in a few days, you will see what looks like tiny splinters of glass hanging on the sides of the aquarium. These are your new Zebra Danios.

Because they are not exactly sizeable fry, they will require quite small particle-sized food at first. There are preparations of liquid fry food available at your aquatic store and it's a simple task to add a few drops of this at the recommended times to their tank. It may help if you keep a low-level light burning over their tank so that they can feed 24 hours a day.

It is important during these first few days not to over-feed - a difficult task, as you'll never be exactly sure how many baby mouths you've got to feed. Therefore, regular partial water changes are of the highest importance, if water conditions in the nursery tank are not to be compromised.

As the fry grow, then the feeding routine can mirror that outlined earlier for livebearers, with a gradual progression on to larger particle foods. Again, spacing out of fry into larger tanks may be necessary.

By Dedi Walker - Article Source: EzineArticles

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Fact Sheet - ZEBRA DANIO (Brachydanio rerio or Danio rerio)

Zebra Danios - Photo: Wikimedia

The Zebra Danio or Zebra Fish, Brachydanio rerio or Danio rerio is a very popular aquarium fish which comes from Eastern India and Bangladesh.

This fish is often regarded as a cool water fish, but in fact, can survive in water of a very wide range of temperatures. I have heard reports of them surviving through the winter with pond temperatures as low as 4C (3S F). This is the temperature water gets under ice. However, I do not recommend them as a pond fish for these conditions. At the other extreme, I have read that they can survive very high temperatures. Again, I would not suggest very high temperatures for it.

In practice, the Zebra Danio is happy in either cold water or tropical aquariums.

Leopard Danios

The Leopard Danio is sometimes given the scientific name Brachydanio frankei or Danio frankei but is probably not a true species, but rather a variation of the Zebra Danio. It crosses readily with the Zebra Danio producing fertile young. Care of these two fish is identical. The striped coloration appears to act as a dominant single gene to the spotted pattern of the Leopard fish.

Note that hybrids can occur within the genus, but they are normally sterile.

Companions

The Zebra Fish grows to about 2 inches (5cm) long so it is a small fish. It is usually peaceful, but I have observed enough aggression to class it as slightly aggressive, rather than peaceful. It is a strongly schooling fish and, as with most schooling fish, they tend to be more likely to be aggressive if there is less than a school. However, I have known a school of Zebra Fish attacks a Siamese Fighting Fish so I would avoid slow moving fish with long fins in with Zebra Fish.

Suitable companions for the Zebra Fish include White Cloud Mountain Minnows, most tetras, including Neon Tetras, Cardinal Tetras, Glass Bloodfin Tetras, Emperor Tetras, Black Widow Tetras, small Goldfish and other similar sized fish.

I would avoid slow moving, long finned fish like Guppies, Endlers Guppies and Siamese Fighting Fish.

Water

The Zebra Fish is reasonably flexible in its water preferences, but I suggest neutral to slightly alkaline water. The hardness does not seem to be critical. They do not like ammonia or nitrites, so the water should be kept clean and well filtered.

Food

The Zebra Fish is very easily fed. They are usually the first fish to come to the top to eat. It is an omnivore and will eat any normal fish food. They usually eat at the surface but are happy enough feeding at any level of the aquarium. Catching the Zebra Fish

If you can catch your fish before they are disturbed, the Zebra Fish is very easy to catch. They will swim into the net. However, once they are disturbed they are extremely good at evading capture. The horizontal stripes combined with its speed of swimming make seeing it more difficult.

Counting

Occasionally an aquarium shop will have a competition to guess the number of fish in an aquarium on display. The fish chosen is usually the Zebra Fish because they are very difficult to count.

Breeding

The Zebra Fish is easily conditioned because they eat so readily. Live daphnia or mosquito larvae (wrigglers) are good. If these are not available, there are plenty of good dry and frozen foods. I use frozen blood worms.

It is an easily bred egg scatterer. They are also avid egg eaters. One common way of protecting the eggs is to have the water shallow with marbles or small rounded pebbles on the bottom. Most of the eggs will fall between the stones or marbles and have a chance of hatching.

Increasing the temperature a few degrees will often stimulate spawning. A temperature of about 26 C (78 F) is suitable for spawning the Zebra Fish. Eggs can hatch in a day. One female will produce between 200 and 800 eggs, so the eggs and the fry that hatch from them are small.

The natural food of the fry is protozoans (Infusoria) in the water. This can be supplemented with commercial fry food. Live food is very good including screened daphnia or newly hatched brine shrimp.

By Steve Challis - [http://www.bettatrading.com.au]  Article Source: EzineArticles

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Learn About DANIO FISH, a Great Species of Fish For Any Aquarium

Add variety to your Aquarium; add a Danio

Danios (long-fin Zebra Danio) are really fun to have and can mix up the colors in your tank. Having multi-colored fish keep your tank from being a bust. Colorful fish add excitement to the mix. Danios average 4 inches but are known to grow up to 8 inches. Danios are a tropical fish so a community of tropical fish is perfect for your Danio.

Both colour morphs of Danio kyathit
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Danios are smaller but don't underestimate these meat eaters. Danios are carnivores that can chow on crustaceans, worms and larvae. A staple diet of tropical flakes and pellets are a fair food to provide your Danio fish. Just follow the packaging directions so you don't over feed your Danio. Like other carnivorous fish you can feed your Danio frozen or freeze dried foods, blood worms, tubifex worms etc. If you are feeding frozen foods be sure to thaw them out first. Feed your Danio twice a day with staple foods and up to four specialty meals a week.

Danios are spend their time swimming in the middle of the aquarium but they also need a room to swim because Danios are social fish that swim in schools, even with other fish. The water Temp should be a medium between 70 to approx 80 degrees. Danio Fish are a personal favorite. These are the "big fish" in a small pond as they are tough little meat eaters. I see that they take to worms a lot more than other staple fish food.

By Nathan E Peterson Article Source: EzineArticles

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