A Bullying Danio

After the death of a second Danio yesterday and a third hovering at the top of the water, I went back to the shop to see if she had any ideas. She looked at both and didn't think there was anything particularly wrong with them - apart form not being well! The rest of the fish in her tank that they came from were also fine.

So she exchanged both Zebra Danios for a pair of Leopard Danios in case there was anything wrong with the Zebras. Got them in the water and left them for a while.

Then whilst I was eating my lunch I noticed that the big Leopard Danio that I thought had laid eggs was back to being fat again - in around 5 hours... Something was wrong there also. So I watched it for a few minutes and whilst I was doing that it started to attack all the other fish. Most of the attacks were aimed at the Zebras, but it would also attack the Leopard Danios, Neons and even the remaining Halfbeak if they were passing by. But the attacks were none stop and it was chasing the Zebra Danios around the tank. One of them does appear to have an injury.

So I dropped in some food and half the Danios came to the surface. Big fatty ate most of it and when it wasn't eating it was bullying the rest of the fish to chase them from the surface.

So it was bagged up, returned to the shop and exchanged for, hopefully, a quieter Leopard Danio.

Once he was out of the tank the entire shoal did become more peaceful. I'm not saying there's no in fighting, there's still plenty, but it's now a few of them involved in much less violent occasional attacks, instead of one attacking everything in sight constantly.

And I thought they would be peaceful!