Zebra Danio problems (possible disease?)

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Aquarist, not Aquarius
Oct 17, 2004
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Gainesville, Florida
I just wanted to make sure about a hunch and ask some people with more knowledge than me on fish. Here goes:

My 5 zebra danios lived quite peacefully in a 10 gallon tank for quite some time until I decided to go visit family for the weekend. When I came back, one fish was missing and the rest were very hungry. I thought that it was eaten, but two weeks later, I found it swimming about with the rest of them with a very thin look about it. There was an indent behind the gills on the ventral side and of course nearly no smooth curve to that portion either. The gills were pretty chewed up but like a trooper he's come back strong.

However, another one of my males seems to have developed a huge stomach/swim bladder. I noticed today that this same fish was unable to keep a steady level in the water.

My heater has been on the fritz and I just replaced it. The water temperature would fluctuate from 78 degrees to 69 degrees for the past 2 weeks. Could this be why both have not recovered well?

I noticed tonight that all of them have taken on a very light coloration and it scared me. Could any of them have TB or would this just be from all of the temperature changes?

Thanks a million!
 
Anyone?

The male I'm worried about with possible TB looks bloated, but his scales lay flat and he doesn't get harrassed by the females a whole lot.

Lazarus, the fish I thought died, still needs to grow back his right side gill scales. How long should that take?
 
A lower temperature should not be a problem for danios as long as it didn't dip below the low 70's...sounds to me like you have bigger stress related issues going on in your tank. I would start with the basics like how long has the tank been setup, ammonia & nitrite readings, tankmates, etc...maybe someone can help you better with this type of information.
 
The tank has been set up for over 2 months now. I've done regular water changes of 20% weekly.

The only other residents in the tank are cory catfish which ignore the danios.

As far as amonia and nitrites, they read zero. Nitrate reads at 10 or less ppm on the average.
 
How quick were those fluctuations?

IME, danios often have issues. Curved spines were common when I had them--they'd be fine for 6 months, then start hunching over. They'd often live fine this way, but they looked worrisome.

Can't really offer much advice--the specifics don't really indicate anything in particular. For the larger, bloated fish--this could be a female (they tend to be the larger, plumper fish) who is now carrying eggs. Depending on how much damage was done, the gill scales on the other fish might not regrow. If a significant portion of the skin was removed, it may just heal and never re-grow the scales. This won't be a big problem for the fish, as long as it does heal within 5-10 days.
 
Oh, those fluctuations of 76 to 69 degrees F were all in one day, every day, for about a week or two. I know. I should have addressed it immediately. It took loosing two SAE to figure out that the heater had kicked the bucket.

Well, I thought the male was a female too. The bloated condition has lasted a while, though. The other females are twice this fish's size. Well, let's hope it's eggs, right?

The spines look fine. Besides that male that got beaten up, everyone's fins are fine too. Actually, I've never seen such colorful danios.
 
6-7 degrees over the course of one day isn't too dramatic for danios. I doubt that caused the problem.

Was the tank cycled prior to their introduction? If not, the exposure to the cycling process could be the cause--the damage done isn't always immediately apparent.
 
10,0000 !!!!! OG Yeah!!!!

The danios could have just have been from bad stock. Danios like to zip around so the 10 gallon in size may not be small but the might be hitting the tank sides. If you keep up with regular water changes this should help the healing along.
 
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That same swollen danio just keeps on getting bigger. She looks like she might pop since I'm seeing faint white lines between the scales. Do you think it's just some sort of fluid could be building up? It's symmetric and the body tapers as it gets near the tail area, so i don't think it's a disease. It just looks really wierd. Possibly eggs? But you'd think that she'd lay them already.. yeish...
 
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