Leopard danio - Danio rerio (Brachydanio frankei)

Originally from India and Pakistan, the leopard danio, scientifically also called Brachydanio frankei, enjoys great popularity in aquaristics. With its unmistakable appearance, it provides pizzazz and liveliness in the aquarium and is a squeaky-clean contemporary that gives a lot of pleasure. Due to its peacefulness and easy keeping it is especially suitable for beginners and newcomers and is also quite easy to breed.

Leopard danios have a torpedo-shaped body with a silver-grey ground color. The sides show black spots, which are golden edged and remind of a leopard pattern, hence its name. In places these are lost in solid lines up above the caudal fin. Its mouth is terminal, the eyes large. The otherwise transparent fins are black and yellow-orange fringed in places. The anal fin has red lines.

The males differ purely externally mainly by their more intense colors and more compact build, growing up to 6 cm in size. In contrast, the females seem a little more slender, but more plump and show a somewhat paler color dress. The breeding is also possible in the aquarium without great previous knowledge. The animals mainly look for fine finned plants, but also mosses, on which they lay their eggs. However, since they are good spawn predators in some places, young animals come up only rarely. For successful breeding a prepared rearing and spawning aquarium with a bottom grid and lots of Java moss is suitable. After spawning, which usually happens early in the morning,  the parents should be moved again, so that the offspring can hatch and grow up in peace. After only 2 days the first babies hatch and at the beginning they stay near the bottom. 4 days after hatching they swim around freely and can be fed with very small live food like slipper lizards. Artemia nauplii are suitable as follow-on food. Only when they have reached a certain size, they should be transferred to the community aquarium to their parents.

the new home of the Leopard danios should have anedge length of 60-80 cm, because these lively comrades do not only love swimming in a shoal, but also dash off the one or other distance. Therefore they should be kept in groups of at least 6 animals, rather more. Because they occasionally romp around a bit, the aquarium should also be covered to prevent them from accidentally jumping out. Because the animals mainly stay in the middle and upper water layer, there should be enough space for swimming, the planting should therefore rather be in the background and at the edges of the tank, but in places already weedy, so that the animals can retreat to recover. They do not have high demands on the substrate or the other furnishings. According to their habitat they like to stand in the middle of the current, so the filter can be a bit stronger.

Socialization with other peaceful fish that come from similar water parameters is possible without any problems. Also well reproducing dwarf shrimps like for example Neocaridina or the Sulawesi algae shrimp or also the popular Amano shrimp are great co-inhabitants. When selecting other fish, however, care should be taken that they are not too shy and are not too stressed by the lively leopard danios.

Leopard shrimp are omnivores, but they do not eat aquatic plants. In the aquarium they can be fed with any commercially available fish food such as flake food or granulated food . From time to time they can also be spoiled with live and frozen food, such as mosquito larvae, cyclops, daphnia or artemia.

Our food recommendation: NatureHolic professional main feed is a professional main feed for all aquarium fish. We supply Hauptfeed in the form of soft granules, which, thanks to its grain size of half a millimeter, can be easily ingested by small to medium-sized fish. The soft consistency resembles the texture of insect larvae in nature and protects the fish mouth from micro-injuries.

Our plant recommendation: Use for planting NatureHolic InVitros. These are free of snails, planarians and other unwanted co-inhabitants. Also free from algae spores, bacteria and fungi.

Expert Tip: We recommend for fish keeping the NatureHolic 3 Phase Liquid. The care set offers the best all-round protection for your animals. It ensures optimal conditions for successful breeding and keeping.