- 1). Feed your zebra and leopard danio ordinary flakes from a pet shop, as well as Tubifex worms, but be careful of overfeeding. These fish are particularly susceptible to poor water conditions, which can easily be caused by too much decaying fish food. It is better to feed them a few flakes at a time, then add more once they have finished the first batch.
- 2). Ensure that the area in which your aquarium is situated remains at room temperature, which means you will not need a submersible heater to keep the tank warm. Danios flourish in water between 72 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit, and they need an aquarium of 10 gallons or more in which to thrive. When you add clean water, add a pinch of aquarium salt, which decreases the amount of pathogens in the water.
- 3). Deal ruthlessly with a suspected outbreak of velvet disease, which is caused by the Oodinium parasite, and which can kill all your fish in a few days. Unfortunately, danios are particularly vulnerable to velvet disease. The symptoms include what appears to be a fine gold dust on the fish's scales. It will clamp its fins together and rub against rocks in order to dislodge the parasite. Immediately raise the water temperature, decrease the amount of light around the tank and treat the water with copper sulphate for about 10 days.
- 4). Separate a few of your adult danios into a shallow breeding tank, and condition them with brine shrimp to prepare them for spawning. Raise the water temperature, add more live plants and place black marbles at the bottom of the tank; these will be useful as ''traps'' for the eggs so the parents do not eat them. Once the adults have spawned (they can produce as many as 500 eggs), remove them from the tank and clear it of decay and marbles. The fry should hatch after two days.
- 5). Move the fry to a larger tank after they have been fed microscopic live organisms for a few days. Feed them baby brine shrimp and powdered egg to promote growth. The adventurous can interbreed leopard and zebra danios; the fry usually takes after the zebra parent because the leopard is a spotted color morph of the zebra, caused by a pigment mutation.
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