So I believe our ignorance that killed all but one baby Zebra Danios. Probably not useful for a lot of you but for those who are keeping Zebra for the first time and do not have a lot of experience, you may find a couple of new things if you read on. Here's what has happened so far.
About over a week ago I spotted a bunch tiny baby Zebra Danios in my 10g tank which was solely occupied by 6 Zebra Danios. The first count was 5 so instantly I knew that a majority of them had been sucked in the filter and suffered a rather unpleasant death. The rest were probably hiding from their own cannibal parents who seemed to have a hard time distinguishing their own babies from flake food (!!!). Immediately I turned off the filter, which for some reason freaked all the Zebras out to no end. Carefully we then transfered all the babies we found to a vase (that's the best we got at the time) by sucking them out with a tube. One of them broke his body in half as he fell from the tube in to the vase and subsequently became the next casualty. The rest (6 of them) made it safely.
Over the next few days we kept feeding them crushed flake food and did small water changes. They appeared happy after 2 days of being timid. Most started swiming around and making noises (alright, you got me there!). The next day we decided that the vase was too small for the babies so we went to Pet Smart and got a betta bowl for them, plus some baby fish food and a bag of white gravel (yep, this one is the fatal one!)
We once again faced the task of transferring the babies with a little tube. However, with a bit more experience, nobody got hurt this time. An hour later one of them started floating up side down. Further examination confirmed that he was in fact now in a better place. I guess we had not recycled enough water from the vase so the bowl was full of fresh water, causing the shock of moving. An hour later 4 of them just disappeared into thin air. Thinking they were probably just hiding, we were concerned but managed to keep our patience. Yesterday, we finally found out what happened to those 4. One of them got down the gravel, unable to find his way back up, drowned. The rest were probably suffered the same fate. Only one is now left alive in the bowl. We're keeping our fingers scrossed.
We had been so happy because of the new experience and the fact that we somehow saved them from their parents. Now we are just sad and disappointed. So my conclusion here is: minimize moving, keep water change contant but limited amount, and of course gravel is the old mean DEVIL.
About over a week ago I spotted a bunch tiny baby Zebra Danios in my 10g tank which was solely occupied by 6 Zebra Danios. The first count was 5 so instantly I knew that a majority of them had been sucked in the filter and suffered a rather unpleasant death. The rest were probably hiding from their own cannibal parents who seemed to have a hard time distinguishing their own babies from flake food (!!!). Immediately I turned off the filter, which for some reason freaked all the Zebras out to no end. Carefully we then transfered all the babies we found to a vase (that's the best we got at the time) by sucking them out with a tube. One of them broke his body in half as he fell from the tube in to the vase and subsequently became the next casualty. The rest (6 of them) made it safely.
Over the next few days we kept feeding them crushed flake food and did small water changes. They appeared happy after 2 days of being timid. Most started swiming around and making noises (alright, you got me there!). The next day we decided that the vase was too small for the babies so we went to Pet Smart and got a betta bowl for them, plus some baby fish food and a bag of white gravel (yep, this one is the fatal one!)
We once again faced the task of transferring the babies with a little tube. However, with a bit more experience, nobody got hurt this time. An hour later one of them started floating up side down. Further examination confirmed that he was in fact now in a better place. I guess we had not recycled enough water from the vase so the bowl was full of fresh water, causing the shock of moving. An hour later 4 of them just disappeared into thin air. Thinking they were probably just hiding, we were concerned but managed to keep our patience. Yesterday, we finally found out what happened to those 4. One of them got down the gravel, unable to find his way back up, drowned. The rest were probably suffered the same fate. Only one is now left alive in the bowl. We're keeping our fingers scrossed.
We had been so happy because of the new experience and the fact that we somehow saved them from their parents. Now we are just sad and disappointed. So my conclusion here is: minimize moving, keep water change contant but limited amount, and of course gravel is the old mean DEVIL.