Danio question

[becky!]

I started with 6 leopard danios, and put them into my fishless cycled tank (along with some other fish...)

A few weeks later, I noticed one of them with a bent back, humpback if you will. A few days later he died, which I knew was coming because he was swimming slower and slower, and the bend in his back seemed to make it nearly impossible for him to swim.

Yesterday I noticed another one that looks like he might be following the same path. Very slight bend to his back that I didn't notice before.

My question is, is this something I am accidentally doing to them, or maybe some sort of birth defect? My water parameters are amonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 0, and a stable PH. I'm not sure what else we could be doing to them, if the water seems good.

 

[Spat_si]

how do you have 0 0 0... if your tank is cycled is should have a reading for nitrates.. I'm confused

 

[thecichlidaddict]

I agree, something sound fishy... faulty testing kit maybe?

 

[becky!]

I guess I'm confused, I thought you didn't want nitrates or nitrites. I supposed in looking at the test more carefullly it could be somewhere between 0 and 5ppm, but no higher than that for sure.

We've had this tank up for over a month now, and that is what it has been consistently reading, 0 0 0.

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Ammonia turns into nitrite, which turns into nitrate, but nitrate stays in the water. Unless you have a very light fish load and very heavy plant load there should always be nitrates measurable in the water. How often do you do water changes?

 

[becky!]

We do water changes once a week. I think our load is fairly light (this is my 30 gallon tank) and we do have quite a few plants in the tank.

Do you have any ideas about the danios? I tend to think it's some kind of overbreeding birth defect sort of thing, but since the second one started looking like that, I thought maybe it was some sort of illness.

 

[heresmike]

My tests after cycling have always read 0 0 0, even though my tank is fully stocked. During cycling, I was getting readings on all tests. It's possible that the nitrate level is now so low that it doesn't register on your/my test. I was always going to take a sample to my lfs to have them verify, but since my fish are happy, haven't gotten around to it.

The humpback could be a result of tuberculosis. Here's a link to help diagnose diseases. HTH!

http/www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html

 

[becky!]

Thanks so much heresmike! I'll for sure check the link out!

My tests definitely registered during cycling too, so I think they are fine...