Large Belly on a Zebra Danio?

[Feathers]

I've only had my Zebra Danios for about a week and a half, and one of them has been getting a progressively larger belly. I watch them eating, and the large-bellied one seems to eat no more than the others do. It looks like the fish might be pregnant, but as Danios are egg-layers, I wondered if their belly will swell before it lays eggs? I'm not entirely sure that it's eggs, since it seems like it would have had to happen right before I got them from the store, or right after.

This fish was as stream-lined as the others when I first got it, so I'm wondering if there's something else that might cause a Zebra Danio's belly to swell? The fish is still very lively (the most lively of my three, in fact) so it doesn't seem to be painful or tiring.

Thanks for your help..!

[TheOldSalt]

Yessireebobbaroonie, the eggs make them swell up quite a bit, in fact.

[Feathers]

Hmm... seems like strange timing for eggs! I suppose I wasn't expecting them since I only recently got them from the store and figured that stress would write off mating for a while. I suppose not!

Well that's a relief, I must say. I was worried it was some digestion problem and I'd find a dead fishy any day now or something.

Thanks for your help! =)

[SueM]

They haven't mated yet, since they are egg scatterers, the eggs are fertilized externally. If you want to save any of the eggs.....remove the gravel, get baby grass mats, java moss to cover the bottom, or what ever the eggs can fall down into so that the parents can't eat them, then pull the parents.

[Feathers]

Well... I actually don't have interest in trying to harvest the babies. My tank is actually still cycling, and I think that pulling out the gravel and changing everything around at this point may possibly set back the cycling process a great deal... If the eggs were coming at a time when the tank was finished cycling I would think about it, but I really don't know if it's a good idea at the juncture?

Similarly, I don't even know if any of the fish I have are males. XD I think two of them are probably females, and I have no idea about the third...

I also don't have anywhere else to put the parents, since my Danios are still technically in quarantine and I don't want to put them in with my mollies and risk an outbreak of something...

[Knight~Ryder]

One of my female danios has a huge belly too, and my tank is still cycling. Looks like we are in the same boat.

Thing is I already saw an egg on the glass and then it was gone hours later. I am almost 100% sure it was an egg. It looked so much like a zebra danio.

But it's gone...so now I'm not sure what I'm waiting for?

[TheOldSalt]

It might interest you to know that putting fish into a new tank is a good way to make them spawn. I've lost count of the number of times I've had fish spawn the same or next day after I brought them home, and barb & danio breeders, especially on fishfarms, have long used this method to crank up production. Therefore, it's not unusual at all for this to happen, and if you have ripe females and some males, it's almost certain to happen.