Zebra Danio

Looks how to spot one

Small, slender scaled minnow

A torpedo-shaped little fish with a flattened side profile and bold horizontal blue stripes running from gill to tail fin. Males tend to show golden tones between the stripes and have larger anal fins, while females show silver between the stripes and have a fuller, paler belly. It carries two pairs of small barbels near the mouth.14

Personality what they are like

An energetic, sociable fish that is always on the move, darting around in a tight group. It is peaceful with other fish, while within its own shoal it sorts out a friendly pecking order through short chases. It is active in the daytime and is one of the easiest fish to watch in a community tank.341

Daily activity how busy a day looks

Very active and fast; it needs a long tank with plenty of open swimming room and some water movement to enjoy.3

Grooming and care the hands-on bits

Hardy and forgiving. Keep a group of at least 8-10, feed small meals once or twice a day and change part of the water regularly. A tight-fitting lid is sensible because danios are quick swimmers near the surface.36

Home where they are happiest

Aquarium with a base of at least 90 x 30 cm for a small group (FishBase gives 60 cm as a minimum length). Water temperature about 18-25 C, pH 6.0-8.0, hardness about 5-20 dGH. Plants around the edges with open water in the middle suit it well. In the wild it lives in shallow, slow or still water such as rice paddies, ditches and stream edges with silty or sandy bottoms.321

Food basics what goes in the bowl

Omnivorous. Wild fish eat zooplankton, small crustaceans, worms, insect larvae (including mosquito larvae) and insects that fall on the water. In the aquarium it takes good-quality flakes or granules readily, ideally with small live or frozen foods like daphnia, brine shrimp and bloodworm added.342

Company who they like around

A true shoaling fish that should live in a group, ideally 8-10 or more; in groups it shows its best colour and most natural behaviour. Mixes well with other small peaceful fish such as tetras, rasboras, livebearers, loaches and small catfish.32

The story where it all began

The Scottish naturalist Francis Hamilton described the fish in 1822 from the Kosi River in the Ganges basin, originally placing it in the carp genus Cyprinus, and for a long time it was known as Brachydanio rerio before being moved to Danio. It became one of the classic beginner aquarium fish because it is hardy and breeds easily. From the 1970s, George Streisinger at the University of Oregon turned it into a laboratory model animal, and in the early 1980s his group became the first to clone a vertebrate using zebrafish. Today thousands of scientists around the world study it, helped by its see-through embryos that develop outside the mother. In 1999 scientists at the National University of Singapore created fluorescent zebrafish, and from late 2003 these were sold to aquarium keepers under the GloFish brand, later in a whole range of glowing colours.1754

Recognised by the official bits

IUCN Red List

Assessed as Least Concern (9 October 2009)2

FishBase

Listed as highly commercial in the aquarium trade and as a research model organism2

Taxonomy (Hamilton, 1822)

First described by Francis Hamilton in 1822 from the Kosi River in the lower Ganges basin1