Zebra Danio

[magicd]

Hey ya,

I have just bought 2 Zebra Danios. One is probably full size already and one is a medium sized one. The large one keeps attacking it and its not letting the smaller one eat. I think this is only a 5 gallon tank. What can i do in fixing this problem? Add more zebra danios?

Also when they eat, they always spit out the food and eat it again. (Dryed blood worms) Is that normal?

 

[dwarfgourami]

We get a lot of these threads on TFF and it always involves at least one of 2 factors:

too small a group: danios are schooling fish who constantly work on establish group hierarchy. If there are only two fish, the dominant one won't be able to stop maintaining his dominant position (it's instinctive) but there will only be one recipient for it and this poor bullied fish may end up dying from stress. You need a school of at least 6-8 fish.

too small a tank: danios being very fast active fish need space to express themselves; I'd say a 3 foot tank is good, but bigger than 5 gallon anyway.

Now there is no way you are going to fit 6-8 danios in a 5 gallon, and even so they might be stressed by the lack of swimming space. So it seems to me that there are two solutions:

try to get a cheap tank off E-bay, local recycling pages, TFF's trade page

or

find somebody who will take your danios off you

Spitting food out and swallowing it again is normal and nothing to worry about.