Celestial pearl danios

[Back in the fold]

Back in the day I don't think this very exquisite fish was around and since coming back into the hobby three years ago I saw them. WOW ! ! ! These are nice. Lots of times you see pictures of fish in fantastic color but the ones you have just aren't the same. Many factors come into play. They got moved and are stressed, the water is not to their liking or they are aren't the best specimens. First thing you do is make sure they are eating good food regularly and that you are giving them a nice clean aquarium. I'm a big believer in species only tanks. Some fish don't like other fish no matter how peaceful or non threatening they may be. These could be fish like that. Good luck with them.

 

[hansgruber7]

I have a school of 10 CPDs in my 20G. They are beautiful, wonderful fish. In my experience when you get them they are a little faded and the color comes in over time. I also find they are often sickly when you get them. I'm not sure if they are overbred or what. I had to use the Aquarium Co Op Quarantine Trio of medications on them to get them to recover. Once you have a some healthy ones, they are pretty easy and fun to breed. You just need to do it in a separate tank because they will devour their own quickly and none survive. I wouldn't add any other species. They do best in my experience in their own tank. They get pretty shy with other fish around. And they do better in larger groups. You could probably buy another few CPDs or breed your own.

 

[DoubleDutch]

I have a school of 10 CPDs in my 20G. They are beautiful, wonderful fish. In my experience when you get them they are a little faded and the color comes in over time. I also find they are often sickly when you get them. I'm not sure if they are overbred or what. I had to use the Aquarium Co Op Quarantine Trio of medications on them to get them to recover. Once you have a some healthy ones, they are pretty easy and fun to breed. You just need to do it in a separate tank because they will devour their own quickly and none survive. I wouldn't add any other species. They do best in my experience in their own tank. They get pretty shy with other fish around. And they do better in larger groups. You could probably buy another few CPDs or breed your own.

In my experience this isn't entirely correct.
Funny thing is that CPD seem to behave entirely differently if kept in a community as in a species only tank.

In the communitytank they don't act as a shoal but females inhabit a certain space seperately (often a plant) and males swim in between. They are bold little fish then and the first to explore changes in a tank.
On the other hand fish in a species only tank swim in a shoal but strangely appear to be more skittish than the former and often hide in plants or behind wood etc....

Personally I don't know what their natural behaviour is but I'd say the first.

Another thing to mention is that there seems to be an healthissue in CPD's that still isn't ID-ed (getting skinny, showing weird spots and lumbs, stop eating, etc....)
Looks like a viral / mycocystis issue.

 

[hansgruber7]

Interesting. Yes, I've noticed the health issue too. And it happened more than once from multiple vendors when I bought them. You might be right about the behavior. I tried to keep them with a betta and they were really shy and skittish. I moved the betta to his own 5G tank and they became much bolder. So you may be right about their behavior with other similarly-sized fish.