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Hi all,

We've just had a Zebra Danio and a White Cloud jump from a tank :-P I've never heard of this before - I was wondering if anyone else had?

Situation is this:

My well intentioned but ill informed 13 year old brother was trying to keep three Minnows & a Comet (yes, yes I know) in a beat up little 8L / 2 US Gal plastic bowl... Anywayz, I bought him a 30L / 8 US Gal glass aquarium (which I know is still too small, but tanks aren't cheap, you know) to try and alleviate things, and between us we transferred the filter and gravel (in the hopes of minimising cycle time). He also added a school of 5 Danios.. So far so good.

Tested all the water baseline parameters - read as:

KH = 1.4 dKH (Might up that later - didn't want to play chemist in a new tank though)
NH3 = No reading
NO2 = No reading
NO3 = No reading
PO4 = 0.02 ppm - probably just gunk from the old gravel, I assume
pH = 7.2

The problem lies in that we found one minnow and one danio dead on the floor this morning, and one of the remaining danios harassing the rest of his school something chronic :-(

My LFS doesn't do returns, so we can't take them back, and the other tank is already slightly overstocked, so we can't transfer them either :-(

The poor little guy is off at a festival as well, so he doesn't know yet :-(

Hi Geesloper
First off Danios do jump and it has happened to me. They tend to be jumpy when they are first introduced to the tank probably because there're not used to their suroundings and Golfishes eat anything that they can fit in their mouths and if they are stressed....<jump> (I thnik should be the same with white clouds )

Secondly one of my friends has a goldfish tank and he decided to put in a SAE to clean algae; a week later it jumped out the tank probably being chased and no where to hide.<stress>

Is that a newly setup tank? I don't tink it's possible to have 0 NitrAte in a cycled tank. And if so the tank will not have cycle properly as ammonia is gonna build up REALLY fast

Gee

Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!

Gee - thanks for the reply. :-)

The tank is new, yes, but we transferred the gravel and the filter directly from an old tank. I'm aware of the biology/chemistry of the N cycle, which is why I did this. I will do more testing this evening (24 hrs after set up) and post more results to this thread.. I'm anticipating a slight spike in NH3/NO2 because of the higher load, and the fact that I'm sure many of the bacteria didn't survive the transfer - time will tell, I guess. :-|

Although I'm obviously a bit sad about the jumpers, I'm glad to hear its not unheard of :-(

The Comet is too small to eat any of the other fish, and actually seems to be ignoring all the small fish altogether.

I was thinking of planting the tank more heavily to provide more hiding places, though. Would this be a good idea?

Tested again - still zero across the board on Nitrogen compounds.

I guess it'll take more than 24 hours for nitrates to build up.

I also had a Danio jump during the first couple days I had him. Even with a lid that has only one tiny opening. If they want out, they will find a way.

Anding more plants would be a great idea. All the fish will feel a little more secure. Just make sure there is still plenty of swimming room.

If you used all fresh water, and none from the old tank, than yes it will take a little while for the nitrates to show up. And if you have live plants, you just may never get a reading. The plants might be taking in the nitrates just as fast as they are being produced.

Last edited by T/A at 30-Jan-2005 00:33

I'll definitely go for the plants

My 15 gal is very heavily planted, and I still get slight nitrate readings (10ppm) but they take forever to build up.

We're also going to the get the glass lid recut to fit better. :-P

I wouldn't want the nitrAtes too high cause that would be the cause for algae and u don't want that!

Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!

Yea, I know :-P Its probably too heavily stocked. :-P

If you cant take fish back, take em to a different store!!
Comets unfortunately are a pond fish, and Im sure you know how big they get , in excess of 3-4 feet. It will just die if you keep it. Perhaps you can pull a sneaky pete on him and replace it with a gold barb or the like. Something much smaller and adapted to living in smaller environments. (though still not a perfect fit)
For that tank, you could keep the danios and the minnows, but remove the goldie and any other fish. Not a good plan.
I wouldnt doubt though that the goldie is tryin to eat the littler fish and hence why they are jumping. My sister had an oranda that was actively hunting her neons. It would chase them into the bushes, then hide and wait and when 1 would come out, YUM!
Funny fish Goldies are.


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I don't know any stores that will take fish, or take fish back in my area :-(

He would notice if I replaced it as well.

He actually originally had 2 comets in a 2 gal

Hi geesloper - sorry I'm coming to this thread quite late. How are the fish doing now?

The jumping fish thing is unfortunately rather common. But the only time I've had fish jump is when there is something wrong in the tank - water quality or stress from another fish harassing them.

The plants should help the little guys to hide from anyone who's chasing them, BUT you might find that with the smaller groups (4 danios and 2 WCMMs) they are now MORE LIKELY to jump! This is because...

a) there are fewer of them to spread the attention of whoever is bullying them and

b) they will be more stressed in a smaller group and might actually start nipping/chasing each other

So... (and this might not be a popular answer) if you cannot return the danios and minnows, you should get more. Boost the numbers up to six of each to see what happens. Observe the tank closely and see if you can work out where the problem is coming from.

By the way, I have a planted tank that's been established for a long time and I never have any nitrates either.

Last edited by whetutu at 07-Feb-2005 23:07

Hi Whetu :-)

The fish are doing well now (with a piece of wood layed over the gap in the glass, might I add).

The water qual was good, as it was a straight transfer from one tank to another using the same gravel and filter media - never had even a glimmer of an ammonia spike.

One of the Danios was harassing some of the other fish, but we have since purchased a few more, so the tank now has the comet <bleh>, 2 bronze corys, 5 WCMMs, 5 Danios... They seem more content now, I have to say. :-)

With regards the nitrates - my heinously overstocked 15 gal (I dunno if I've mentioned this tank before, but its the one with 16 fish including 2 clown loaches :-P) is very heavily planted, and it always reads between 2 and 10 ppm, regardless of the plants... The 8 gal (With the WCMMs et al) is, based on current fish size, more heavily stocked than the 15 gal, yet still has lower nitrate readings :-P

Maybe the fish in the 15 gal are just higher waste producers.