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Hi everyone, I started a 29g tank 2 weeks ago. I have 4 gaint danios. The domainant danio has orange-red color in his body, which I noticed approx. 3 days ago. The color starts halfways down his body and goes to the end of his tail. It is very thin and only along the very bottom of the fish. I first noticed it in the start of the tail fin. Two other danios have this coloration, but only in their lower part of the tail fin, and it is very faint compared to the domainant danio. Their orange-red color has not spread along their body unlike the other danio. All fish seem to be unchanged in their activity level, feeding, and behavior. The tempature is at 76 f and I did 25% water change(pretreated water before adding to tank) the other day cause the nitrite was between 0.8 and 1.6 mg/l. I am using an aquaclear 200 filter and use cycle as recommended.
Any information of the color is appreciated.
thanks.

HI and welcome to fishprofiles.com.

This sounds like it could be septicemia, but being that your tank is just recently setup, it could also be the results of natural toxins building in the new tank.

Have you kept tanks before? Do you know about the nitrogen cycle? If not, please read this as your fish can succumb to New Tank Syndrome

So, what we need to rule out first is environmental possibilities. Can you please bring back readings on the following:

Ammonia:
NitrIte:
NitrAte:
pH:
Temp:

Give us what you have now and for what you can't test, please take a bag of water to a local fish store and ask that they test it for you, ASAP. When you go, please take a pen and paper and insist on writing down the values so we can interpret them ourselves. What is ok for one fish isn't for another.

Are you using any pH adjusters or other chemical additives? How about dechlorinator or chloramine remover? List anything you re putting in the tank.

Once you bag your water, please consider doing a 25% water change with same temp water, conditioned with something to remove chlorine/chloramine. If you are using pH adjusters, then just do a 15% change, but do not use the adjuster. We'll explain later. It won't hurt and if toxins are building, it will help them.

If you find that you have ammonia or nitrite in any amount, please purchase a bottle of New and Improved Cycle or Stress Zyme or similar "bacterial starter". Bio-Spira is the best, but right now you probably won't find any. If either is up, you may also want to purchase freshwater aquarium salt, like Doc Wellstone. Predissolved salt can help provide relief for the nitrite phase, even at half dose. You may also want to consider purchasing something like Amquel(+) or Prime by Seachem which can reduce toxins since you have fish that are not cycle hardy.

My guess is that your fish are experiencing the nitrogen cycle. If all values come back normal, then we can consider something like septicemia. This is a severe bacterial infection which causes internal hemorrhaging. It is important that such a fish is isolated, even if you just use a rubbermaid bin, with a cheap 5 dollar air pump, 25w heater, airstone, check valve, etc. Other fish are at greater risk of catching the infection if they start feeding on a dead or dying fish, which is completely natural for them to do. Transfer is done with some of the original tank water so that temp stress doesn't happen, then you can add more water over the next couple of hours that is the same temp. At this point you could try to use a med like Kanacyn, Tetracycline, Furan-2, Tri-Sulfa, etc. However, organ damage is usually done when hemorrhaging shows through to the outside.

Are there any other fish in the tank?

[span class="edited"][Edited by Cory_Di 2004-07-07 22:45][/span]

Hi thanks for the information:
here is some more
ammonia ?
nitrite .8-1.6mg/l
nitrate ?
ph 7.6
temp 76'f

will go to fish store for futher testing.

This is my first fish tank and i have just those 4 danios.

I am using new improved cycle, aqua plus for conditioning water and no ph adjusters because the ph is their range.

I have added new rocks to my tank this weekend. I got three rocks from landscaping place, on flat piece of flagstone and two rainbow colored rocks. Also store bought rock last week. All rocks I have boiled and washed thoroughly.

I hope this helps and thanks for any more info.

Hubble - keep an eye on that pH since the rocks were added. It may be a good idea to do a test on each type you put in. Pull one out and dry it a little, then place a drop of distilled vinegar on it and see if it fizzes. If it does, it will raise your hardness and ultimately could drive pH really high.

With those nitrites, I would suggest some freshwater aquarium salt. Predissolve a half dose (look at back of carton), then throughout the day just keep adding a little of the solution to raise salinity. This will change out with water changes. If you have live plants tho, this can be a problem as most don't like salt.

Let's see that ammonia reading and nitrate reading when you get it. That will tell us where you are in the cycle. My guess is that your ammonia was recently "up there" and is now coming down with those low nitrites. Looking at the timeline, I would expect the nitrites to be at the beginning of their timeline rather than the end. Cycle is good, but not as good as Bio-Spira which is hard to find. If the ammonia was elevated, its very possible the redness you see will go away on it's own. However, if it progresses while ammonia is coming down, then we may have a deeper problem going on.

Regular danios are cycle-hardy meaning they can tolerate cycling toxins better than most fish. I don't know about giant danios.

Since you are at the beginning of your hobby, I strongly would encourage you to pick up the means to isolate sick fish. Netting, stress of transport and fishstores that do not quarantine new fish are recipes for outbreaks in new tanks, especially if you get fish from a chain store. Consider buying a simple 10 gallon that can be used as a staging area for new fish and can be used as a hospital tank for sick fish.

You don't really need a filter for such a tank, but it wouldn't hurt. The only problem is that sterilizing becomes an issue. Instead, I bought just the old fashioned tri-flow corner filters that people often use with breeding. They are like 3 bucks. I put some gravel in the bottom to weigh it down, put a small layer of activated carbon in it and some filter floss (cottony looking stuff you buy in a bag). I don't use carbon if I will be medicating. You hook it to an air pump. Airline and a check valve (to prevent backflow in power outages) along with a 25w heater (visitherm makes a good one) are all you need. I keep a couple of 5-6 dollar air pumps and air stones so that I can set one up quickly. If you can maintain 75F in any given room, with consistency, then I wouldn't even bother with a heater. However, it would keep temp stable. Stable and slow moving temp changes are critical in avoiding common parasitic outbreaks like ich. 1-2F daily in changes are a good guideline. Fish don't self regulate their body temps so a 4-5F drop can cause temp shock and bring on ich or velvet.


[span class="edited"][Edited by Cory_Di 2004-07-08 05:40][/span]

latest update

the coloration seems to be normal according to a couple of fish stores's employees and seen other giant danio with same color( they call it pinkish instead of orange-red)on a couple of internet pictures and in a couple of the stores.

thanks hubbel