On my 3rd attempt now to spawn (and raise) Danios.

Latest attempt goes like this. 20L with marbles in the bottom, cleaned out, no fish for 2 months over the winter. Kept water in it and a sponge going, but no fish so no waste build up. Water is crystal clear. Oh, and the tank is in the window, gets direct sunlight in the morning for a bit.

I decide to rip apart the 46 bowfront inside, so I need a place to put some fish while I strip it down and put it back together. I put 6 threadfin rainbows into the 20L for holding. The rest of the fish from inside go into another established tank, didn't want to way overload the 20L since it's not cycled at all.

3 days and the water starts going green. 3 more days and the threadfins are removed, and it's getting a deep green tint. Welp, I got some good algae going, green water well on it's way so I figure I'll try the danios again. At this point I can still see down the entire length of the tank but it's very cloudy.

2 prior attempts left me with no fry, they all died off or a pleco ate them, who knows. Time to give it another whirl!

I put in 6 danio, just pull them from one tank and drop them in. 3 days go by. In my (limited) experience, this is plenty of time and they have spawned, eggs should be in the marbles. I got massive amounts of green in the tank now. You cannot see length wise anymore. You can't even see to the back of the tank looking from the front! Takes me a long time to pull out 6 danios when you can't see through the tank!

2 days go by, I got fry on the walls of the tank. This morning they were 75% free swimming. No idea how many I have cuz the water is still so green. It's literally 3 inches of visibility.

Maybe this time some will live! So far so good, but I don't usually start loosing them until they been free swimming for 2-3 days it seems like. So we'll know in the next couple of days.

Sounds like a great try. Keep us informed. Photo opportunity?

If I remember correctly, last time they were so small, I had to stand there for several minutes to be able to even see them. I thought cory babies were small...these are even smaller!

Yea, your eyes had to adjust before you spotted them. They were like a tiny little swarm. If I recall, your wife took much longer to find them, if at all. Or maybe that was Maggie, heh.

I'll take a photo tonight but...it's awfully green! =)

The green is starting to clear up. I need to read the doc on the camera to figure out how to manually focus. I can't auto focus on the fry, they are way to small. Click on photos to get a bigger pic. I took a quick count and saw atleast 20 fry, mostly free swimming...so far so good!

An accidental pic



Full tank pic, "Danio Attempt 2/22"

Thanks for the photos!

Still alive, on Day 4 since hatch.

You inspired me and I went and bought some zebras today. Probably won't happen but I set them up kind of like you said. Thanks for the inspiration!

Good luck with them Jack! Knowing your track record, you'll have fry in no time.

Mine are still going, day 5 or 6ish. Easily the furthest along I've gotten them so far. I'm starting to wonder when I need to worry about water changes. Think I'll let them get feeding on microworms before I try one, another week or two I guess. If anyone has experience raising Danio, please share.

Mine are still alive it looks like. I should take a closer look tonight and try to get an idea if I've lost a bunch of not. Water is still pretty green but it's lightening up. Should be about time to start feeding them something I suppose.

Prolly my last update until I bring them to a meeting to BAP. Probably next month, we'll see if I think they are large enough. Looks like I have 20-30 growing out. Got them on microworms now. Water is still green soup and they are thriving =) Even did one 15% water change and it didn't wipe them out.

Kinda interesting. I bought some giant danios and had them in a hospital bare tank. Caught them today to move into cichlid tank. As I was netting them, what's that. One lonely fry swimming. Put him in another tank. Darn, wish there had been 6.

Dave,

Congrats on the spawn! It has too feel great. Did you have a tank full of green water on the other attempts? I would think the green water would up the survival rate because it is full of micro orgs. Wish you many more

Chad

Nope, the green water is new as of this attempt. I picked up some green water from Brian B on my last attempt but just a bottle full and I didn't put it all in the tank, I was 'feeding' with it. Shoulda put it all in there.

Fell into this on accident, didn't mean do the whole tank of green water. But yes, that's why this attempt worked so well. I wish I'd left the danios in there another 2 days, I'd have 2-3x as many fry right now. But it's all good. I should bring these to the April meeting for BAP.