Pregnant Zebra?

[jlane1980]

Hi,
I have 4 Zebra Danios in my tank, from what i can tell 1 (or 2?) are male and 2 (or 3) are Female. The one's i suspect of being female are looking quite bloated, how could i tell if they're pregnant?
I'll try and post Pics, as soon as i can get a reasonable steady pic! I'm pretty bad at photo's!

Jon

 

[flix_cw]

Hi,
I have 4 Zebra Danios in my tank, from what i can tell 1 (or 2?) are male and 2 (or 3) are Female. The one's i suspect of being female are looking quite bloated, how could i tell if they're pregnant?
I'll try and post Pics, as soon as i can get a reasonable steady pic! I'm pretty bad at photo's!

Jon

Hey,
Zebra Danios aren't livebearing fish, so don't get pregnant as such. They're egglayers, so the females scatter their eggs while the males scatter their sperm, leaving the eggs to hatch in the environment. My danios bloat and then shrink at different times, which i assume is them developing their eggs and then releasing them, respectively.

Danios are like the bunnies of the fish world, they breed with little trouble! Keep any eye out for teeny (eyelash size) little ones sitting on the substrate/ornaments/glass. They won't survive for more than a few days due to lack of food, or they become snacks for their parents.

I often find babies in the bucket after doing a gravel vac.

 

[jlane1980]

Brilliant, thank you.
I don't really want to breed anything, but i didn't want to be cruel either!
I think i'll just leave everything to run it's natural course then.

Thanks again.

Jon

 

[Gilli]

Dannios are easy to sex - the females have a rounder deeper body and are brown and cream coloured striped, the males are more slender and are bright yellow and brown striped.