Hello to all aquarists! This post will focus on the pink zebrafish. Let me immediately explain that this species belongs to the breeding form of zebrafish (lat. Danio rerio), and not to those fish that, in comparison with the breeding ones, are considered true pink zebrafish (lat. Brachydanio albolineatus), but also, like zebrafish, live in India.
True pink zebrafish (lat. Brachydanio albolineatus)
It should be noted that the work of the breeders was not in vain and the pink zebrafish gained enormous popularity, but at the same time, I think, some kind of disadvantages appeared.
Pink zebrafish is a breeding form of zebrafish (lat. Danio rerio)
For example, according to my observations, pink zebrafish are more prone to diseases; besides, the selected fish are somewhat smaller than ordinary zebrafish. But now the elegant pink danios are still just as nimble and cheerful and very interesting to watch.
Description
All zebrafish belong to the carp family of the order Cypriniformes. These include long-known and popular among aquarists: long-horned beetles, zebrafish, loaches and spined loaches. They are common in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. All cyprinids lack an adipose fin. Longhorned beetles and zebrafish are in many ways similar to characins and occupy an ecological niche in Asia that belongs to the latter in America. When keeping zebrafish, they need to be given herbal supplements. Carp-like animals do not care for their offspring.
In an aquarium, zebrafish grow no more than 5-6 centimeters. Their body is elongated and painted silver with bright blue stripes. Young veiled species have short fins, and when they grow back they form a veil. The edges of the fins may be yellow. A distinctive feature of the difference between a female and a male is the abdomen - in the female it is much thicker. Males, as a rule, are always slimmer than females. The average lifespan of zebrafish is 3 years.
How to choose the right fish when buying and what to look for?
Pink Danios are attractive, unpretentious fish that are a good choice for both beginners and experienced aquarists. When purchasing, you should adhere to the following principles:
- It is preferable to choose young individuals, because they are more hardy and take root better due to their age;
- You should carefully examine the appearance of the fish, they should not be damaged;
- evaluate the behavior and give preference to those fish that have a sharp and energetic disposition.
If the choice was made correctly, then Pink Danios will delight the caring owner for a long time with their colorful appearance and active behavior.
Danio pink content
Keeping pink danios just like their ancestors zebrafish is not at all difficult. Although zebrafish are not demanding of a large volume of water, they love clean lake water, so an aquarium for keeping pink zebrafish must have a fairly strong biological balance, which cannot be created in small aquariums, so the minimum aquarium volume is 50 liters. Hydrochemical parameters of water: hardness 5-15°, acidity 6.5–7.5.
It should be noted that the recommended water temperature parameters for keeping zebrafish from different sources may vary. For example, somewhere you may be recommended 21-25° degrees or even 18-23° C. This water temperature should be considered conditional because in real conditions, when keeping zebrafish in a common aquarium, it will have significant deviations.
Think for yourself, no one will recommend that you keep fish in a general aquarium at a temperature of 18-23° degrees, knowing full well that the rest of the fish will die out from hypothermia and disease. I keep zebrafish at a temperature of 24 to 26° degrees.
Pink zebrafish tolerate temperatures of 28° degrees well, but at elevated temperatures, females’ eggs quickly mature and the risk of developing a cyst increases significantly. Danio rerio are to some extent considered cold-water, but when kept in a community aquarium, they adapt perfectly to warm water.
Price
Today, pet stores offer aquarium danios of all types. Among them you can find pearl fish and danio roseus. Experienced aquarists recommend buying juveniles; they adapt faster and better to new conditions. The price of one fish depends on the size and condition. There is a wide range of prices for zebrafish. So pink danio (pearl) costs 25-30 rubles for one tail, while danio roseus (rerio) can be bought for 35-45 rubles. Therefore, those who are taking their first steps in the aquarium hobby should learn to navigate prices well.
Although zebrafish are unpretentious to keep, how long these fidgets will please you depends on the conditions created by them. Therefore, having decided to place them in your home pond, it is worth learning as much as possible about caring for them in order to ensure your pets a long and healthy life. If you liked the article, leave comments and share a link to it on social networks.
What to feed pink danios
Danios are omnivores and do not refuse dry gammarus, daphnia and specially produced artificial food. As a herbal supplement, they can be given steamed and well-washed semolina or just a crumb of white bread. Among artificial foods, grated beef heart is loved. But the fish menu should not consist only of dry and artificial food. To maintain health, they need to be fed with live food.
Among the live foods zebrafish love are: small bloodworms, coretra and daphnia. If necessary, and especially in winter, live food can be cultivated for them at home. For example, Daphnia moina is well suited for these purposes.
Zebrafish are fast and preferentially stay in the upper layers of water and, when food is added, they eat first.
Proper feeding
Danios love to eat, so overfeeding them is not recommended to avoid obesity. Once a week you need to give your pets a fasting day. You can feed both frozen and live and dry food.
Fish eat with pleasure:
- daphnia;
- bloodworm;
- small insects and their larvae;
- any dry food.
When feeding only dry food, a decrease in immunity may occur. It is recommended to periodically introduce live or frozen food into the diet.
Don't forget to vary your food
Zebrafish diseases
Pink danios are quite hardy and unpretentious, but they get sick just like other species. The most common disease is ichthyophthyriosis. Symptoms of the disease: scratching of the fish on the ground, compression of the fins and the appearance of a white coating in the form of small grains (semolina) on the body of the fish and fins.
The causative agent of the disease is an equiciliated ciliate that parasitizes the body of fish, but it usually affects fish with a weakened immune system. The cause of an outbreak of ichthyophthyriosis can be an undesirable decrease in water temperature, as well as inadequate nutrition, which leads to depletion of the fish’s body. Sick fish can be cured with the drug bicillin 5. The procedures are carried out both in a general and separate aquarium. When growing delicate plant species in an aquarium, the second option is preferable.
Habitat
The historical homeland of this fish is considered to be India and Indochina, Asia. The pink zebrafish lives in cool freshwater bodies of water. In European countries, they learned about this fish at the beginning of the last century, and it soon gained immense popularity among aquarists around the world.
Today, the pink zebrafish is bred by breeders and is on the verge of extinction. Therefore, it can be found much more often in artificial reservoirs than in the natural environment.
Danio pink breeding
I have bred zebrafish many times and I will tell you that these fish are very easy to breed. Young individuals willingly go to spawn, and spawning can be observed even in a community aquarium. Once I had the opportunity to observe the appearance of fry preserved in the thickets of plants. The fry, feeding on ciliates and leftover food, grew up, became bolder and joined the flock.
There are two ways to arrange zebrafish spawning, with and without preparation. In the first case, approximately a week before the planned spawning, it is necessary to separate the males and females. For example, this is how I do it: I put males in a spawning tank and after 4-5 days I add females to them. The second method depends on random spawnings in a common aquarium, and since such spawnings are unexpected, there is no need to plan them for some time.
However, if you change half or a third of the water in the evening, then spawning will most likely begin in the morning hours. In this case, you need to catch the spawning fish and place them in a spawning tank where spawning, as a rule, can continue successfully. I have used this method many times and I can say that it is 99% trouble-free.
Possible diseases
The pink danio has good health and a strong immune system. However, poor-quality nutrition and a polluted water environment can provoke the development of a number of diseases:
- Flatulence . It is easy to notice by the bloating and passivity of the fish, which spends most of its time at the bottom of the aquarium. Treatment is carried out with the help of Trichopolum.
- Bug-eyes - occurs due to pollution of the aquatic environment. Lack of treatment leads to complete blindness. Therefore, you should clean the aquarium, disinfect it, and replace the water. If these measures do not help, then contact a veterinarian.
- Formation of growths . In this case, salt baths will help. It is necessary to dilute salt in warm water (at the rate of 1 tablespoon per 1 liter of liquid) and place the sick fish in a container with saline solution. The optimal time for the procedure is 15-20 minutes.
- Tuberculosis . It is a contagious disease, so at the first sign of it, sick individuals should be placed in a separate aquarium to avoid the spread of infection. Treatment is carried out using food with the addition of antibiotics. Only a doctor should determine medications and their dosage.
- Intoxication . Nitrate poisoning can manifest itself as restlessness and fish swimming in circles. In this case, it is necessary to completely replace the fluid in the artificial reservoir and change the water daily by 30% of the total volume for a week.
Pink Danio is a beautiful, graceful, peace-loving fish. The absence of a tendency to diseases, manifestations of aggression, and a peaceful attitude towards other inhabitants of an artificial reservoir have made this ornamental fish one of the most popular among aquarists.
Zebrafish Spawning
This time I am breeding pink danios. There is absolutely nothing new for me. I have live food and a well-established technique for raising fry. I breed these fish because they are beautiful and a grown school should definitely decorate my aquarium. I brought pink danios from the city of Ruzaevka when I was there on a business trip.
Initially, I didn’t plan to buy, but just before leaving I decided to visit a pet store to buy some fish as a souvenir. Since zebrafish are hardy fish, and it took me more than 12 hours to travel home, I chose pink zebrafish. And upon arrival home, I planned to breed pink danios there in Ruzaevka.
Danios are undemanding about the size of the spawning tank, and anyone who bred these fish knows well that you can use just an ordinary three-liter jar for a spawning tank. But this option is considered not preferable because the hatched fry will still have to be moved to a nursery aquarium, and this is associated with a certain risk of their loss.
Well, if that’s the case, then it’s time to move the fry from the jar to the nursery aquarium correctly. There is no need to suffer and catch the fry with a spoon, ladle or net. Also, you cannot pour them out of the jar, but you just need to put the jar in an aquarium in which the water level is higher, then place a hose with a sprayer in the jar and quietly turn on the aeration. A small stream of water will help the fry get out of the jar.
To breed pink danios I will use a 20 liter spawning tank. I will install the aeration and set the heater to 26° degrees, and as a protective net I will use a synthetic rope untangled and crumpled, and then pressed on top with stones.
The net does not cover the entire bottom of the spawning tank, but as they say, this is beneficial and I will not need to eliminate the excess part of the fry. I will place the mesh in the center because I think this is where the middle part of the spawned eggs will be preserved.
Danios can spawn in pairs, but if the males are no longer young, then two or more males are added to one female. In the evening I added one female to four males. Among the selected males there were males with the following color variation: two males of a bright pink color, one with a dark pink tint, and another male with the zebra zebra variation who, for some reason, did not participate in the spawning at all.
The next morning, spawning began. It lasted about an hour, after which I immediately transplanted the breeders into a common aquarium. On the third day the larvae appeared, and on the fourth or fifth day the fry swam.
Comparison of the present species with the selection one
As already noted, there are two similar species of pink Danio, so aquarists often confuse them. The so-called True Pink Danios (lat. Brachydanio albolineatus) live in the wild, and ordinary Pink Danios were obtained through selective breeding (lat. Danio rerio) .
To avoid confusion, many fish breeders have agreed to call the breeding breed Danio Roseus. The present species is called the Pearl Danio.
As a rule, Pink ones look more attractive than Pearl ones. The latter have a silver-gray body color that can shimmer in the light. From the middle of the body to the caudal fin, these fish have a bright orange stripe, thanks to which they can be quickly distinguished from the breeding Pink Danios.
Pink zebrafish fry
Since the Daphnia nauplis were still large for the tiny fry, I used boiled yolk as a starter food. But I only managed to feed the yolk for two or three days because the fry had already begun to eat the daphnia, which I added to the fry as soon as they swam.
I always used ampullaria snails as orderlies, but this time I didn’t have them, and I added a small ancistrus to the fry, which also did a good job of eating the fallen yolk particles from the bottom.
The fry fed the yolk from his finger, that is, without washing the yolk, since the milk, consisting of microparticles of the yolk, which muddies the water, was eaten by the daphnia, and the water was always clean and transparent. Today the fry are three weeks old. They are already eating scraped beef heart and the largest of them can begin to be transplanted into a common aquarium.
The growing school contained fish with different color variations: pink, dark pink and white albino. The appearance of albinos suggests that the pink zebrafish, as a selected species, is easily split and to preserve it, constant selection must be carried out.
Compatibility with other fish
Pink Danios are small, schooling fish with a peaceful nature. Similar sized species are suitable as neighbors: guppies, neons, and others. Species such as barbs, ternets, cichlids or catfish can injure small, peaceful Danios.
We recommend reading in more detail about the compatibility of Danio with other fish in a separate article, which is entirely devoted to this particular topic, which can be accessed using this link.
Salmon family
Scientists have identified 3 main subspecies of this family:
- Salmon.
- Sigov.
- Graylings.
Description
Representatives of this family are distinguished by an elongated body shape, compressed on both sides, with a gray-blue color. Numerous dark spots can be seen on the back, and the abdomen has a silvery tint. Depending on the living conditions, as well as the age of the fish, its color may differ, although slightly.
For example, salmon, as one of the brightest representatives of this family, changes its color to dark before spawning, and the males acquire red spots.
Where do salmon live?
Salmon lives both in the White and Baltic Seas, and in the rivers included in the basins of these seas. More recently it has been found in areas of Siberia. Closer to the northern part of the Pacific Ocean there are numerous schools of this fish.
Reproduction method
As a rule, salmon spawn from year to year in the same places in late summer or early autumn. To spawn, they enter rivers.
The fish becomes sexually mature when they reach 2 or 3 years of age, depending on their habitat. The older the fish, the higher in the rivers it goes to spawn.
After spawning, the fish returns back to its natural habitat in late autumn. They often remain in spawning areas until spring, depending on weather conditions. This applies to those areas that are located closer to northern latitudes.
The caviar of this fish is large, and the older the individuals, the more caviar they have. After the fry are born, they live in spawning areas for up to 3 years, until they reach adulthood, after which they migrate to the seas, where they form numerous schools.
Types of salmon with photos and names
Trout
It is considered one of the most prominent representatives of this family. It is also called the “pied fish” due to the presence of numerous dark spots located on the body.
This fish is found in reservoirs of the western part of Europe, as well as in the southern reservoirs of Russia. Trout prefer to live in cold, crystal clear water that is not covered with ice all year round. In summer, when the water temperature rises, trout prefer to stay in the shade, in close proximity to springs, without showing any activity.
Trout is a predatory fish that can feed on eggs while they are still small, as well as small fish and other underwater creatures when they become adults.
Salmon
It is considered one of the most valuable species of the salmon family. This fish can grow up to one and a half meters in length, weighing about 40 kilograms. Its usual habitat is the northern waters of the Atlantic, although it prefers to go into rivers to spawn.
The fish is carnivorous and feeds mainly on small fish such as herring or sand lance. It is found, as a rule, in lakes such as Ladoga and Onega.
Pink salmon
This is the most numerous species of the salmon family inhabiting the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Pink salmon grow up to 70 cm in length, no more, and reach a weight of about 3 kilograms.
In the second or third year of life, the fish becomes an adult and is ready to reproduce. Pink salmon spawn at the end of summer or with the arrival of autumn. The peculiarity is that all the fry born from her eggs are female. After some time, some of them acquire the characteristics of males.
Omul
This is an anadromous fish, which, like pink salmon, is not large in size, growing in length only up to 60 cm, while gaining weight no more than 3 kilograms.
It lives in the Arctic Ocean, but moves to rivers to spawn. There is also the Baikal omul, which belongs to one of the subspecies of this fish. The omul feeds on plankton or small fish. It is of commercial interest and is therefore caught on a large scale.
Chum salmon
It lives in the northern latitudes of the Pacific Ocean, but to continue its species it goes to rivers. The body of chum salmon has a silvery tint, without any spots or stripes, but before spawning its color changes greatly and its sides acquire a crimson hue.
Chum salmon can be found in summer and autumn. They differ from each other, both in behavior and in their appearance.
Far Eastern salmon
This salmon is also called Pacific salmon. This is a migratory species of fish that grows and develops in the seas and oceans, and comes to spawn in rivers. At the same time, she spawns in the same places where she was born.
All types of salmon differ in that they have different periods of maturation. Coho salmon and chinook salmon are among the most prominent representatives of Far Eastern salmon.
