Interesting Z.D. Observations

[yashinfan]

I have had my Zebra Danios for two weeks now, and as I watch them every day I've noticed some really weird behaviour:

The mates are loyal to eachother: same male, same female per spawn.

They spawn like clockwork: Every 11 days, as soon as the lights go on.

A fish hierarchy: There is one dominant female who likes to push the other fish around and no male tries to mate with her.

Adaptation: The new fish introduced to the tank will not come up when food is dropped into the tank. Instead they wait to see what the other fish are doing and about 5 minutes later will join them at the surface to discover no food is left and the next time join the rest of the school immediately at the surface.

Fry: Not very intelligent ways of evolution considering 99.9% of each spawn are eaten unless I intervene. Fry do not care about one another. They prefer to be in a small area/tank, floating plants help, filtration is preferred but not necessary, air stone not necessary, light is preferred, room temperature is fine, do not need to eat fry food but will live off of the plant.

Those are my observations after 14 days.

[thom336]

Originally posted by yashinfan
Fry: Not very intelligent ways of evolution considering 99.9% of each spawn are eaten unless I intervene. Fry do not care about one another.

Sounds very intelligent to me - otherwise there would be severe over population.

[scott]

They spawn like clockwork: Every 11 days, as soon as the lights go on.


Those are my observations after 14 days

If you have only had them for fourteen days how do you know the spawn like clockwork every eleven?:confused:

[wetmanNY]

heh heh heh you can't get away with anything here at AquariaCentral yashinfan I've tripped up many times myself... as for me, I was just thinking that you were already clued in to some of the details of Zebra Danio behavior. Soon you won't be able to pass yourself off as a newbie...

[yashinfan]

Alright, I'll explain the 11 days thing.

I got my first danios on the 19th and they spawned that same day. 11 days later: June 30th, they spawned again.

My fourth and fifth danios were purchased on the 22nd and spawned that day. 11 days later: July 3, they spawned again.

So it seems pretty "coincedental" if this is not a pattern to me?
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As for the evolutionary idea, yes, I suppose that overpopulation would occur if more than that many young survived because they spawn SO often, but not having one live usually? Sounds pretty foolish to me :D .. but maybe 'cuz I just want more of them.
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WetmanNY: lol, I've only kept these fish for two weeks, how knowledgeable can I be? There's only so much you can learn from reading what other people write instead of observing them for yourself. :)

[wetmanNY]

" WetmanNY: lol, I've only kept these fish for two weeks, how knowledgeable can I be? There's only so much you can learn from reading what other people write instead of observing them for yourself."

...that's pretty knowledgeabale right there...

I gather you keep a journal. You'll be glad you did.

[yashinfan]

I keep a small record of when the fish spawn and between which pair. I also keep track of how the fry develop, I think it's quite strange that it seems the worse the water conditions they are in the more likely they are to survive! Right now I have a fry living and developing quite well in a tupper ware container with tap water (dechlorinated) and a plant. That's it! And it's doing much better than the first batch I had which all died.. I had them in tank water, air stone, water treated whenever changes were made and had the water warmed by the window, I ended up with 10 dead fry.. eep!
My boyfriend took two fry and he has them living in a mason jar with a piece of hornwort, he's never fed them and they've been alive for over a week now! Very odd species!
I'm waiting another 9 days until I remove my new fish from quarantine and then will start to breed them seriously and get some large number of surviving fry out of it (~100??!!) and sell them to buy food or other supplies.