Zebra Danios For Fish In Cycling

[jorge4903]

I know I'm going to take heat from many of you but I have heard some success stories using zebra danios for fish in cycling. I wanted to give it a try as I have heard they are very hardy fish and can survive poor water conditions. My question is how many is enough to do this with? I was thinking 5 as this is a species I would want to keep in my tank along with 1 other species.

 

[Will91]

Make it easy on them and get completely stocked quicker but adding a pouch of MarineLand Biospira at the same time. You can find it at local MarineLand dealers (check the MarineLand site zip code dealer locator) or buy on-line at a variety of sources.

 

[Polenth]

I know I'm going to take heat from many of you but I have heard some success stories using zebra danios for fish in cycling. I wanted to give it a try as I have heard they are very hardy fish and can survive poor water conditions. My question is how many is enough to do this with? I was thinking 5 as this is a species I would want to keep in my tank along with 1 other species.

Five sounds a bit high if it's a small tank, which your stocking plans imply it is. A couple of fish would be better, as it ensures you can keep the ammonia and nitrite levels low at all times. Danios don't seem to notice low levels, but a sudden spike in either will cause damage. You'll want to minimise the risk of longterm damage as you're keeping them.

Looking at it another way, if two danios turn out not to produce enough waste, you can always add more. If five danios produce too much, you're going to be stuck with trying to deal with it and having to do more water changes. Obviously once the cycle is done you'd increase the group to a proper number.

 

[jorge4903]

Thanks for the feedback. It's a 12 gallon tank by the way so I think I will start out with 3 to cycle.

 

[Amunet]

You should REALLY think about doing a fishless cycle.
With the trouble you're going to go through trying to keep the fish alive (but them still coming out damaged due to the cycling process).... it would just be easier to fishless cycle.

Just remember that if you only use those 3 danios to cycle your tank, then the bacteria in your tank is only setup to handle those 3 danios. You'll have to add more fish in very slowly to let the bacteria to catch up... only a couple per week.

Now if you fishless cycled the tank.. you wouldn't have to worry about keeping anything alive.. well other than the bacteria. Wouldn't have to worry about doing water changes every day or every other day and at the end of it, you could add your entire stock of fish to the tank.

 

[Tolak]

The general guideline for a traditional cycle is one inch of hardy slim bodied fish that grow no larger than three inches for every five gallons of water. Two smaller ones, or one large danio should be a good starting point.

 

[OohFeeshy]

^ Which then means you've got schooling fish not in a group, which isn't a good plan.

 

[shang hi]

minnows are good if u want to do cycling with fish, they are very forgiving and hardy and they are quite happy in a group of 3, and they dont grow that big, you could alway make a small 5gall coldwater set up to house them after and have like 6-7 of them in there.