Poorly Platy and fat danio?

[Anna24]

Hi, I have had my 2 tanks and fish for 3 years now. They all get on well, no aggression. I've got 2 x 25 litre tanks one with 1 zebra danio, 1 leapord danio and a male platy, 3 shrimp a snail (and some pesky small snails that came in on some weed) The other tank has 2 female platys and 4 shrimps (there are no problems with the girls tank) A couple of months ago my male platy looked like he was having to make a bit more effort to get to the surface for food, I made a stupid mistake and overfed the tank to help the platy which I think caused a nitrate spike which I have got back under control with water changes. I have noticed my male platy looks a bit bent, he manages to get up to the surface for his tea and gets a couple of flakes. I only see him for about a minute at a time. I've also noticed my zebra danio has become quite fat compared to the other one. Swimming okay though, coming up for food but again only for about a minute, leaving the leopard danio swimming around on their own for most of the time. On an API test my amonia and nitrate is 0 and nitrate 5. Could my danio be full of eggs, ill, old or just greedy? Would it be better to put the female platys in with the danios and put my male platy in the girls tank on his own and take some water out so he doesn't get exhausted getting to the surface? I haven't got a hospital tank (my filter packed up when I was on holiday a while ago and I haven't replaced it)
I hope that's enough information. Any advice would be really appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

I would say its either full of eggs, or bloated from overfeeding.

Your stocking is really messed up... zebra danios need to be in groups of 6 or more, and need a lot of swimming space, as they are active swimmers. (Some thing with the leopard danios)

What is the pH, GH and KH of you water? You can find this information out by going to your local water providers website, or by calling them. Try to get a number. (ppm, dGH, etc.)

 

[Anna24]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

I would say its either full of eggs, or bloated from overfeeding.

Your stocking is really messed up... zebra danios need to be in groups of 6 or more, and need a lot of swimming space, as they are active swimmers. (Some thing with the leopard danios)

What is the pH, GH and KH of you water? You can find this information out by going to your local water providers website, or by calling them. Try to get a number. (ppm, dGH, etc.)

Thanks very much for the reply. I phoned the water company and the only figure they could give me was PH which was 7.37 (they didn't know what GH or KH were) I was told by Pets at Home that the 25l tank was 12 fish points and my fish were 4 fish points so I could add more in future. I didn't get any more danio as they seemed quite happy just the 3 of them in there for the 3 years. I feel annoyed now with Pets at home if the tank isn't big enough for them. I should have said this all started when I started working from home during lock down and I'm sitting next to the tank. I did put a bit of paper on the side of the tank in case it was stress related. Also I should have said I bought a 55l tank on Sat but it's still in its box. My plan was to eventually transfer the danio and male platy into the 55l and have their tank as a spare.
Thanks again for taking the time to read this, your help is much appreciated.

 

[Essjay]

Please take no notice of anything Pets at Home say, including their points system. They have a terrible reputation for advice.

For future fish, look them up on https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ before buying. And don't listen to P@H any more.



I found this on Manx Utilities website (my bold text)

Rainwater is naturally soft and when it passes through porous rocks, calcium and magnesium compounds in the rocks slowly dissolve into it forming hard water. If rainwater passes over less porous rock it does not pick up as many mineral particles and remains soft. This is the case in the Isle of Man where raw water collects in reservoirs which keep the water naturally soft. After the treatment process Manx drinking-water remains soft at around 40 mg CaCO3/l total hardness (16 mg Ca/l).

What's in our drinking water?

Find out more about the Isle of Man's drinking water supply, including what's in the water and the water hardness

www.manxutilities.im

This is soft water - 40 mg/l calcium carbonate is the same as ppm, and it converts to 2.2 dH. These reare the two hardness units used in fish keeping. It is fine for danios but not platies which need at least 200 ppm hardness. You can add minerals to the water to 'harden' it for the platies, and danios, despite being mainly soft water fish, will be OK in harder water. Something like Seachem Repenish would do the job, though you would need a GH tester initially to work out how much you need to add. Minerals like this should be added to the new water at every water change before it is added to the tank to keep the hardness in the tank stable.


Can you return the tank as it is still in the box? The AquaOne Aqua Aspire is a 40 cm/16 inch cube which is not enough swimming room for fast swimmers like danios. A rectangular tank suits them much better - Seriously Fish gives the minimum length for danios as 90 cm.
If you can change it, once you have another tank you can transfer all the fish and at the same time transfer the old filters into the new tank - or put the media from the old tank into the new filter. This way the tank will be instantly cycled for the fish you have now.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Totally agree with @essjay. Pets at Home is essentially the worst it can get when it comes to “advice”.

Please never take advice from LFS workers or any big box retail store workers, they usually don’t know what they are talking about.

 

[Anna24]

Please take no notice of anything Pets at Home say, including their points system. They have a terrible reputation for advice.

For future fish, look them up on https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ before buying. And don't listen to P@H any more.



I found this on Manx Utilities website (my bold text)

What's in our drinking water?

Find out more about the Isle of Man's drinking water supply, including what's in the water and the water hardness

www.manxutilities.im

This is soft water - 40 mg/l calcium carbonate is the same as ppm, and it converts to 2.2 dH. These reare the two hardness units used in fish keeping. It is fine for danios but not platies which need at least 200 ppm hardness. You can add minerals to the water to 'harden' it for the platies, and danios, despite being mainly soft water fish, will be OK in harder water. Something like Seachem Repenish would do the job, though you would need a GH tester initially to work out how much you need to add. Minerals like this should be added to the new water at every water change before it is added to the tank to keep the hardness in the tank stable.


Can you return the tank as it is still in the box? The AquaOne Aqua Aspire is a 40 cm/16 inch cube which is not enough swimming room for fast swimmers like danios. A rectangular tank suits them much better - Seriously Fish gives the minimum length for danios as 90 cm.
If you can change it, once you have another tank you can transfer all the fish and at the same time transfer the old filters into the new tank - or put the media from the old tank into the new filter. This way the tank will be instantly cycled for the fish you have now.

Thanks so much, I will try and return the tank and see what I can get rectangular tank wise (fingers crossed) I won't be listening to p@h anymore. I will get some water hardner too. Thanks again.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Thanks so much, I will try and return the tank and see what I can get rectangular tank wise (fingers crossed) I won't be listening to p@h anymore. I will get some water hardner too. Thanks again.

Glad we got everything figured out. Hopefully you can get a much bigger tank for these little guys.