Danio behaviour

[Chris Roebuck]

My son upgraded his tank to a 6 x 2 x 1.5 and transferred all his fish about
a month ago. He has just added 2 gouramis, 4 para tetras and 2 borneo
suckers. His danios have now started behaving oddly, one getting into a cave
and circling, another hiding in a narrow gap on the gravel, etc etc. Does
anyone know why they might be doing this, would it be anything to do with
the new fish and what should he do about it.
Hope someone can help
tia
Chris

[NetMax]

"Chris Roebuck" > wrote in message
...
> My son upgraded his tank to a 6 x 2 x 1.5 and transferred all his fish
> about
> a month ago. He has just added 2 gouramis, 4 para tetras and 2 borneo
> suckers. His danios have now started behaving oddly, one getting into a
> cave
> and circling, another hiding in a narrow gap on the gravel, etc etc.
> Does
> anyone know why they might be doing this, would it be anything to do
> with
> the new fish and what should he do about it.
> Hope someone can help
> tia
> Chris

We would need the results of water tests. When in doubt, do lots of
water changes. If it's a disease introduced by a new fish, this will not
be detected by a water test, so often it's a process of elimination. If
it's behavioural, they might settle in. Watch to see if they are picking
on each other.
--
www.NetMax.tk

[Ozdude]

"Chris Roebuck" > wrote in message
...
> My son upgraded his tank to a 6 x 2 x 1.5 and transferred all his fish
> about
> a month ago. He has just added 2 gouramis, 4 para tetras and 2 borneo
> suckers. His danios have now started behaving oddly, one getting into a
> cave
> and circling, another hiding in a narrow gap on the gravel, etc etc. Does
> anyone know why they might be doing this, would it be anything to do with
> the new fish and what should he do about it.
> Hope someone can help
> tia


I think the new tank is cycling - more specifically it has high nitrate and
ammonia.

Have the fish also lost their appetite? Do their gills respire rapidly? Is
the, or has, the water gone a milky white colour recently?

These are all signs of bacterial blooming consistent with a new tank and
filter.

The way to bring the nitrate/nitrite down is a couple of ways, or both if
you prefer:

Get a zip lock sandwich bag amount of gravel from the surface of the old
tank and spread it all over the surface of the new tanks gravel - the levels
should drop with-in 48 hours if your filtration is correct.

Do a partial water change each day (about 10 to 15%) for a couple of weeks
until the bacteria have established themselves in the new filter.

Test your water also because even though the water looks fine I can tell you
from experience it's probably not.

Test for Ammonia, pH and Nitrate - optimally Nitrite too.

The ideal is have Ammonia and Nitrites register 0 and Nitrate to measure no
more than 15 to 20 ppm. pH for your fish sounds like it should be around
6.6 - 7.5, preferably lower. I am in Sydney and at the tap the water is 7.0
but I get it down to 6.4 in my new tank using driftwood (I hope - because I
haven't tested yet - the tank is only 14 hours old and waiting for it's
first water change). My temperature is too high (only 1 degree C, but still
too high) and I only seeded the filters this morning, using the method I
described above and squeezing the sponges from the old filter directly into
the new tank's water - I am now waiting for the milky white (slight) to go
away before I proceed further.

Adding live plants will also go some way to helping reduce the number of
Ammonia and Nitrates.

Personally I am into live plants because a) they look good and are actually
fascinating to propagate and b) they are live filters and gobble up waste,
more or less.

Once you have the levels corrected and if you do have live plants in there
then I suggest you remove any carbon or "detox" substances from your tank.
After that be care full adding only 1 to 3 fish per week, all the time
watching for Ammonia and Nitrate. It's better for the poor little fish to
have an attentive keeper ;)

As for further reading try
http://honors.montana.edu/~weif/firsttank/firsttank2.phtml and NetMax's
excellent resource at
http://www.netmax.tk/ also http://www.thekrib.com/Chemistry/ to get a
technical grip of what's possibly going on.

Good luck to you and I hope this information is correct and helps.

I am going through a new tank cycle right as I type this and I can tell you
the biggest aspect to overcome in this whole thing is *patience*, and from a
little incident last night, *don't panic*: there is always something you can
do, but it takes a little time and effort and understanding. Nothing is
instant in Aquaria I'm discovering, and if it is done or expected in haste
then it's probably detrimental.

Regards,

Oz