rhouston

One of my zebra danios has taken a little bit of physical damage lately and I'm not sure what the best way is to deal with it. For a while I've had 3 zebra danios with a 10 gallon tank all to themselves. The 3 of them have been happy and healthy that way for a while. Just recently I introduced 5 cardinal tetras and 2 platies to the tank. The newcomers have been adjusting just fine, but the danios seem to have reacted by going after each other a bit more. Almost like they are establishing some kind of pecking order. They did something similar to this when I introduced the 3 of them to the tank initially. In any case one of the danios is of the long fin variety, and for whatever reason that one has always been at the bottom of the pecking order. But now it looks like one of those long fins has been broken. It's got a nasty looking 90 degree angle to it, and he's obviously not able to use it much for swimming. I was unsure if there was anything at all I could do. My only thought was to isolate him to see if the fin might somehow heal. I went out tonight and bought one of those floating breeder / quarantine tanks and I've got my injured danio in that. Does anybody have any other ideas? Prognosis? Is this guy just doomed? Does this kind of fin repair itself? Even if it doesn't can this kind of fish get along OK with a lame fin, kind of like a 3-legged dog? Any help much appreciated.

agabr123

i'd add some stress coat to the water, that should help his fin heal. also, make sure that you test your water parameters, really pristine water will help him heal a lot faster. i think that with the 5 cardinals and 2 platies you're overstocked in the 10, your best bet would be to get a full school of zebra danios (maybe the other three should be of the long fin variety to help even things out). having more fish in there that will probably exacerbate the problem and cause the other danios to be even more aggressive. as far as i know danios aren't really like tiger barbs in the sense that they don't necessarily establish a hierarchy, but i could be wrong about that.