Orange Finned Danio (Danio kyathit) Species Profile & Care Guide

The Orange Finned Danio is a very peaceful species making it an ideal resident of the well-furnished community tank. Since it places no particular demands in water chemistry, you can combine it with many of the most popular fish in the hobby, making them a great choice for aquarists.

The Orange Finned Danio is a schooling species by nature; therefore, you should maintain them in groups of 8 to 10 individuals. Keeping these fish in adequate numbers will not only make the fish less afraid but will result in a more effective, natural-looking display. At the same time, males will also exhibit their most solid colours as they compete with one other for female attention.

The Orange-finned Danio is an impressive little fish that has a torpedo-shaped body. There are two distinct colour morphs for the Orange-Finned Danio; for instance, the Ocelot Danio has moderate-sized dark spots all over the body. In contrast, the Orange-finned Danio shows those spots merge into a more-or-less continuous line along its sides, giving it an altogether darker appearance.

It is advisable to have a tight-fitting lid on your aquarium as these fish are expert jumpers and can squeeze through surprisingly small gaps.

Natural Habitat of the Orange Finned Danio

The Orange-Finned Danio is endemic to the upper Ayeyarwaddy River near Myitkyina and the Hpa-Lap Chaung, Mogaung and Chindwin Rivers in northern Myanmar in Southeast Asia. They inhabit fast-flowing tannin-stained clear water in small streams and rivers. These habitats contain dense marginal vegetation and bamboo growth, providing them with lots of shade, and the substrates usually consist of mud and stones.

Other Danios of interest

Diet

In the aquarium, Orange-Finned Danios are largely unfussy feeders and will accept most foods. High-quality dried products can be used as the staple of their diet. Still, it would be best if you supplemented this with regular meals of small live and frozen fares such as bloodworm, Daphnia, Artemia and suchlike so your fish can develop optimum colouration and conditioning.

Sexing the Orange Finned Danio

It is relatively straightforward to determine the male from female Orange-Finned Danio.

Females are usually larger, rounder bellied and deeper bodied and display less orange in the fins than the males, whereas males

tend to be somewhat slimmer, smaller and have bolder orange in their fins, and their colour is all-around richer than females.

The differences are especially apparent when the fish are in spawning condition.

Breeding the Orange Finned Danio

When the Orange Finned Danios are in good condition, they will spawn often, and in a densely-planted, mature aquarium small numbers of fry may start to appear without intervention. However, if you would like to enhance the yield of fry, a slightly more controlled approach is required.

You can still condition the adult group together, but you should set up a separate breeding tank and half-fill it with water. It would be best to fill much of the available space with suitable spawning mediums such as wool mops, java moss or a spawning mesh.

Their water should be slightly acidic to neutral with a temperature towards the upper end of the scale. You can also add an internal power filter making sure that you position it so that the flow is directed down the tank's entire length.

Once you have conditioned the adult fish and the females seem full of eggs, you should then introduce one or two pairs into the breeding tank.

To begin the spawning process, you should add small amounts of cool water every couple of hours so that the tank is gradually topped up or perform a significant water change in the evening. Providing them with small amounts of live and frozen food can also trigger spawning. Several spawning events will probably occur before a female is spent of eggs.

The adults will most likely consume any eggs they come across so it would be best if you removed the adults once they are noticed. At this point, it is advisable to switch the power filter to a mature sponge-type unit to avoid the fry being sucked into it.

The Incubation period is temperature-dependant to an extent but takes between 24 to 36 hours typically. The fry will then become free-swimming a few days after that.

It would be most beneficial if you initially fed your fry on artemia nauplii or suchlike.

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