Increasing the family

L and I acquired 5 Cardinal Tetras to increase the Cardinal school in the tank, which has slowly been dwindling due to the ravages of time. We also bought 5 Golden Zebra Danios so that we can have a few fast moving fish swimming around the tank amongst the slowish Tetras.Hopefully they will also swim close to the surface as we feel that area of the tank is a bit empty at the moment.

Then there were 4

Of the 5 Rummy-nose Tetra we got, 4 have settled in well. Unfortunately we lost one after the first day. The rest started off swimming together and always keeping in close contact, safety in numbers syndrome, until they got used to the tank and its occupants.

They are fast swimmers, the most active in the tank. They remind me a bit of the Zebra and Leopard Danios, swimming backwards and forwards, always on the go.

We hope to get a few more, as I feel 4 are too little and they would look much better when they swim in a bigger school.

Holiday

Over the last few weeks L and I have been away on holiday, which has led to a lack of blog posts. One of the dilemmas we had was how the baby Mollies were going to be fed as the automatic feeder would either not give them any food or empty all the food into the breeding trap. Luckily I was able to get a friend of mine to come in once a day and give them all their daily feed. It worked well and all the babies are much bigger now. We only lost a Danio, which was looking old before we went away. I was surprised to see how much algae had grown on the glass, so will be doing a bit of cleaning up this weekend.

Not So Hardy

Yesterday I noticed that my sole remaining Zebra Danio was missing a small part of its tail and that it was not looking too well. This morning more of its tail had been eaten and it was swimming at the bottom of the tank. I thought I might have a nipper in the tank, but when I got home tonight I found him dead on the gravel, half eaten. Guess he was not well. It appears fish have a strange way of looking after their own.

I had better keep my eye on one of the Leopard Danios, as it is not looking so happy either. The others appear to be fine and are swimming around happily.

First Guests To Check Out

After a few days away on holiday, we came back home to discover that 1 Guppy (Peocilia reticulata) and 2 Zebra Danios (Brachydanio rerio) were missing. Apparently there was a murder mystery week at the hotel.

The missing Guppy below was a favourite of mine as the pattern on his body would be more pronounced when the tank light was switched off. This is because it would reflect any light in the room off the white pattern on it's body.

Not sure what caused the deaths as no bodies could be found. Guess some of the fish ate well while we were away. All the other fish appear to be ok. The fish will be much missed.

Danio Fact Sheet

Here is a fact sheet of the danio

Scientific Name	Brachydanio rerio
Family	Cyprinidae
Common Names	Zebra danio, zebrafish, striped danio, rerio, lauputi, anju
Origin	Eastern India
Adult Size	6 cm
Social	Peaceful, suitable for community tanks
Lifespan	5 years
Diet	Omnivore, eats most foods
Breeding	Egglayer
pH	6.5 - 7.0
Hardness	5-12 dGH
Temperature	18-24 C

Fussy Guests

Over the last few days I have been feeding the Danio's TetraMin flakes and they are quite fussy about which flakes they like to eat. It appears that the general consensus amongst the Danios are the red flakes are not for them. Each time they eat a red flake, it is quickly spat out and they are off to find a better tasting morsel. Guess the red flakes will become food for the bottom feeders when I get them.

I tried to take some photos of them, but because they move so fast, it is impossible to get a decent shot. So I have resorted to getting some images from the web.

Zebra Danio

Leopard Danio

I have done a little experiment with trying to film the Danios, turned out a bit better (it looks grainy because Blogger saved it under a different resolution after the upload) than any photos I took, but will have to improve my directing skills as none of the fish seem to do what I want them to.

First Guests

After monitoring the Ammonium (NH4), Nitrite (NO2) and Nitrate (NO3) for the last few weeks and seen them fall to the appropriate levels, I decided it was time to get some fish. After some deliberation I decided to go for a fish species that was hardy, playful and fun to watch (my opinion of course). So yesterday I went to my local fish shop and bought 3 Zebra Danio (Brachydanio rerio) and 3 Leopard Danio (Brachydanio rerio var. frankei). Once I had introduced them to the tank, they spent the night getting to know their new surroundings. Part of that process was eating all the bloodworms (I was able to identify them with the help of the local fish shop assistant), so by this morning they were pretty much settled in. They appear to be enjoying the few plants in the tank, especially the Cabomba aquatica (Green Cabomba, Giant Cabomba) where they like to hide from each other. Besides darting around the tank, they also enjoyed the flakes I fed them tonight, though not as much as live bloodworms.

So welcome to our first 6 guests. We hope you enjoy your stay.