Baby Danios Help!

Hello, this is my first post here and I have been reading for a while. I joined to see if I could get more specific answers to my questions.

1. I have danio fry (unexpected) and have moved them into a 10 gallon tank with a sponge filter. I also bought the fry food. They are swimming but mainly clinging to the side of the tank. How much should I be feeding them. I am unsure about that. This is my fist attempt at having danio fry and wanted to give it a try. What should I do next?

 

Welcome to FishLore!
How old are the fry?
Carol

 

Dont feed them yet. Not until they are free swimming, they should still be using egg sacks. Once their free swimming, I used to just dip the tip of my finger into the food and then into the tank, then watch to see whos getting big bellies(hard to see when their small). Dont be worried if you loose 3/4 of the fry, its not all uncommon.

 

Congrads on the babies! Danios were my first fry too! Wait until they are free swimming then feed them miniscule amounts of fry food (First Bites is what I used). Make sure to change the water and if you have some floating plants/moss hanging around I would definitely recommend tossing it in the tank. Live plants have so much micro stuff hanging on it for the little fry to nibble at.

 

Ooo Thank You All! ( I appreciate the fast responses) So I woke up this morning and they are free swimming! So as directed in the above posts I placed food in the tank. A small amount. They seem to be attempting to eat it right away. I am unsure if they are able to, I am a bit worried about that. However, it seems as if they are. I am having difficulty determining if they have "fat little" bellies or not! Do you recommend getting a product called liquafry? I am going to do a bit of research now. Everyone seems to be happy and swimming around. I also noticed there are some free swimming in my 20 gallon that I missed. Unfortuneatly until my husband gets home they will have to fend for themselves. I am just seeing if I am able to accomplish raising the fry successfully, and I have a wonderful local fish wholesaler/retailer, that has been helping me and offered to take any that I mange to successfully raise for a store credit. lol. I will just be happy if I succeed store credit or not. So to restate the question, should I try liquid fry or not be worried that they are not consuming the first bites. It is very very difficult to tell. It looks like they are trying to eat.
Also, I do have one piece of the oxygen plant that I put in the extra tank I set up. Should I break off some from my 20 gallon tank? Or purchase some. I am skeptical about purchasing a plant from a store that could potentially introduce harmful elements to my baby tank. Any thoughts?
Again, I thank you all for the helpful information. Will be awaiting replys.

 

Try soaking the food with some tank water in a shot glass/small Tupperware container then feeding with a medicine dropper. Then the food has time to soften and they can eat it better, but its not sitting at the bottom of the tank fouling the water... I've not had any experience with the liquidfry so no opinions there... I wouldn't worry about the plant if you don't have it already good luck!

 

Thank You to All!!! As the morning wears on I have noticed more and more fry very activally swimming around. I am very amazed. I even found my dogs watching the bubbling of the sponge filter. I think they are eating the First Bites so I am going to keep going with that and see what happens. Thanks Again for the help everyone!!! I will update on what is happing with this brood. Thanks!

 

Congratulations and good luck with your danio fry.

I found the liquifry stimulates the growth of tiny creatures such as tiny worms and paramecium which my fry fed on.

Here's a pic of my brood in my 10 gallon fry tank.

 

Mine are extremely tiny right now and I think they are eating the first bites. Now I am trying to battle the problem of cloudy water.
I am feeding the very minimal amount I can. Is is safe to change the water or should I just let the sponge filter do the work? I also read somewhere putting in a snail helps to clean it up. Do any of you suggest adding a snail to a baby danio tank? Will that hurt the babies, they are free swimming. Will it serve any purpose of helping clean the tank. I am nervous about the food clouding the water, and hurting the babies. Thanks for all of the congrats!

 

I do not usually have cloudy water or need water changes until the fry are much bigger. What is the cause of this cloudiness?

I hope this is a cycled tank, but possibly not as you were pressed unexpectedly into action? If so it could be very difficult to achieve success.

What I normally do for very small fry like Danios is use an established cycled tank. I then enable the microfauna population to build up by feeding it with Liquifry. I have better success with live food than powdered food.

I observe the small animals that are to be the fry food on the glass with a x10 lens.

I look to ensure that numbers are building up to the right level (numerous) as these animals will sustain and enable the fry to develop to a size when they will take live newly hatched brineshrimp nauplii.

I maintain the prey by regulating the feeding of liquifry.

There is no need to have snails as they could predate the eggs or newly hatched young, but apart from that they would likely do no harm in small numbers. I have usually had a few snails but believe they contribute little.

Good luck, but if it doesn't work out try again.

 

Thank You for you help again.

The cloudiness has gone away. Here is what we did. We were infact pressed into action. We got a heater, and a sponge filter for the ten gallon we had and took water from our main tank that the fish were born in and (swimming for their little lives. lol) and put it into the ten and then supplemented with conditioned water that I was going to do a water change with in my twenty gallon. I did water tests on everything. Then we did find more babies on Monday and put them into the nursery tank as well. (We even had eggs that were just hatching, that was amazing). We crossed our fingers! Well, to our great suprise! So far so good, all of the fry are doing better than I thought swimming, growing, eating. All of them. I think I had about two that I thought didn't make it so far. They are developing FAST! I have already noticed them getting a lot bigger and it looks like some of the fry are darker than others some are EXTREMELY light, almost can't even see the eyes. I am hopeing that I have both the Zebra Danio, and the Golden Long finned Danio fry. They are visibly eating the first bites and I have got the amount to feed them and how down now as well. So, now it is up to them to grow BIG. *I hope so*

I also decided to pinch off a few of the *oxygen plants* new growth and float it in the baby nursery tank. They really liked that. They are starting to swim at all diferent levels and it almost looks like they are playing? Anyway, that is the latest. Hopefullly it will continue to go well. I have alreayd started to cycle another tank I had for when they get bigger because I know I will need to transfer them, so they don't crowd each other. I figured get it going now, cause it will be a while till they are big enough to transfer.

We will see.
Thank You SO MUCH*~ I am very greatful!

 

great! sounds like all is well... just a hint, we really really like it when people post pictures haha

 

Not too easy to photo danio fry for a while, they are soooo tiny!

This one I was given.

 

I attempted photos but I don't have a macro lens. I will try again in the morning. They are really getting cute! Swimming chasing eating and now I can see there little bellies are getting filled with food. Seems like the babies are multiplying, I must have sucked up more eggs than I thought. Thanks for the comments and help and I will attempt to post photos soon.

 

Hopefully this works, this is the best photo I could get, I used the MACRO setting on my camera. Thanks for the help again everyone. As they grow older I may be able to get more photos. The best I can calculate is these babies are approximately six days old. There are more, but these guys had the best head shots. lol. Thanks~!

 

So exciting

 

Sounds like your accident will continue happening in the parent tank. When snails are ready to lay eggs they give off hormones and such into the water that are perfect fry food for Danios. When I want to raise more little ones I am sure to feed the parents powderized freeze dried brine shrimp as well; the fry get to taking that very quickly and are swimming with the parents occassionally within 2-3 weeks and almost constantly after about 5-6 weeks. My 20 Gal hex tank is stuffed on the back with hornwart and similar plants, open swimming at front with very gentle current through a sponge filter. Fry are often seen feeding off the sponge. All Zebra Danios in this tank. Frequent deliveries to friends with Carnivores are required.

 

After watching friends kill enough babies with Liquifry and similar methods I have sought species specific alternatives to feeding fry. Often enough plants alone will shelter and feed most fry with bacteria in the parent tank but supplementing with a tiny powder that the parents will vacuum up effectively has been more successful and thrifty than liquid fry foods and a separate rearing tank. Over feeding liquid foods causes fungus problems and reduces viability of future eggs you may try to hatch. I prefer well established bacterial colonies to sterile, newly set up hatching and rearing tanks.