RUtoBLS

20 gallon tank, all parameters are normal. ammonia never stays at 0 but I keep it very low (never above .5, usually lower).

I had 3 panda cory cats and 4 zebra danios initially. The pandas were very active, day and night, constantly sniffing around the bottom or shooting up and down the front of the tank and riding the water line up top. Looked like playing.

After a few months, I added 2 more zebra danios. The 6 danios never mess with the pandas. The pandas became much more reclusive, not moving much during the day and smelling around the floor at night, but also "hanging out" at night too.

FYI, I added 1 swordtail and 1 black molly today, and they are not acting aggressive and already seem somewhat comfortable in the tank.

Are my pandas just acting more like they normally do? Or could it be something serious? Thanks for your help, this site is enormously informative and useful.

aquarist48

Good morning and Welcome to Fish Lore
Any amount of ammonia in your tank can be very harmful to your fish. I suggest doing daily water changes of 30 to 50%, add some Prime or Amquel + to detox the ammonia during the 24 hours until it's time for the next water change. Do this until your ammonia reading is 0. Can you post your readings for nitrites and nitrates, pH levels?

What type of test kit are you using? How long has your tank be set up? If you would be so kind as to fill out your aquarium information it will really help others to help you more.

As for the cory cats, they are nocturnal. It's very common for them to just chill out during the day and get very active at night.

Have fun and enjoy the site,
Ken

Craig-D

Pandas are very delicate even in perfect water conditions. Keeping them in water with any ammonia is a definite no-no. If your tank always has ammonia present, it means one of two things: either it's not cycled, or it's overstocked. You may wish to look into the source of that problem and correct it ASAP.

Kyle

Also, it could just be that there are only 3 of them. Pandas do like company and its just possible that as the danio numbers increased, they got a bit shy and reclusive. But definetly check out all your water parameters to see if the problem lies there.