new Zebra Danio help not active and staying at the top and not moving

lucy101101

i just bought 4 Zebra Danios today and they were fine forr the first 30 min or so then 2 of them just went to the top and stayed motionless up there once in a while moving to reposition another one went to the bottom and sat there moving occasionally and the 4th is just hanging around swimming near the bottom whats wrong with them? is it that they just need to get used to it or are they sick?they swim quite slowly. i dont have a test kit

water temp: 24 oC 72 or 73 oF

can anyone help?

also how do u tell a female from a male?

Zeetrain

Thats weirdcause their pretty tolerant of different tamperatures and can withstand the cycling process. Did they get acclimated to the water before putting them in?

Mettalikatt

Your male Danios are more streamlined, and torpedo shaped whilst your females have a belly on them.

kitten_penang

yup true

lucy101101

well one of them died in 5 hours and another two overnight :(
am i doing something REALLY REALLY wrong or is it the pet store?

Inga

Could be either. Without knowing what your water parameters are, it is anyones guess. First thing I would recommend is to get yourself an API Master test kit for the fresh water aquarium. Is this an already cycled tank? How long has it been set up? What kind of filter? Have you tested your source water at any point? Did you use a water conditioner, like Prime?

In the fish store, were the fish active and acting "normal" when you saw them? Did they come from clean healthy looking tanks, that were free of dead fish?

I am sorry to hear of your poor little fish. I hope we can remedy any problems that might be occurring before you move forward with other fish.

lucy101101

ive just restarted my tank on that same day i didnt know about cycling till later when i was searching about how to care for them but i read that danios were very hardy fish used alot for cycling and i didnt use water conditioner

Byron

Hi, and welcome to Tropical Fish Keeping forum.

I don't know where you are, but if you are using tap water there will probably be chlorine in it, possibly chloramine, and perhaps other "stuff" not good for fish. Chlorine and chloramine will kill fish, and from your posts I suspect this is the cause behind the deaths. A good water conditioner is essential when adding tap water to a fish tank, both at the first and with each regular water change. Not all water conditioners are the same; some only handle chlorine, some chlorine and chloramine, some also detoxify heavy metals, and still others will detoxify ammonia in the tap water. Prime also detoxifies nitrite and nitrate should these be in your tap water. Before you add any other fish please buy a bottle of water conditioner; your local fish store should be able to tell you what is in your local water and thus which conditioner is best.

Danios are hardy, but no fish is that hardy. In addition to the water, without cycling there will be ammonia and then nitrite, both are toxic to fish. Have a read of the info on cycling in the sticky at the head of the Freshwater Aquarium section, here's a link:
A Beginner's Guide to the Freshwater Aquarium Cycle

Byron.