zebs now out of net in own tank

[Brengun]

It took all day, but I emptied the zebra tank of sparkling gourami (relocated to 3ft community tank), cleaned the glass, took out all substrate, added caves and a platform and a couple of pot plants, and lots of floating little cover plants. The small airstone in the net has been replaced with a larger flat round airstone in the tank.

I saved most of the water and had the filters running in the buckets of water while doing the tank and the zebs in their net in an aerated bucket. In the end I only had to add one bucket of warmed rainwater extra to the tank.

I took a photo of the tank before letting the zebs out of the net. Now they are all released into the tank, I can spy shrimp if I look hard but the zebs are very good hiders.

Do you think everything will be ok for them now?

[ApacheDan]

Test all water parameters, pH, Temp, Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrites. I would add a lot more hidding places, like slate stones, rather than caves...they won't be using them for a long time. Small zebras prefet to hide in other places. If your water parameters are ok & do regular water changes & food diet, they should be ok. I used to worry about if they were still alive when small, but the best thing is to leave them alone for at least a month. Then remove all the tank furniture to do a headcount...and then, leave them alone & happy. Good luck.

[Barbie]

I definitely second that. Adding more hiding places will make them feel more secure and relaxed. They like to hide under spaces that are angled tightly against them so they feel safe and guarded and they tend to spend most of their time there. They also like to be directly on the bottom of the tank when they can. I've had a few fry that chose places up off the bottom, but not very many and usually only in a tank with a lot of other fish. If you do use slate, I recommend gluing a few strips of something to the underside first. I smashed my best breeding female when she managed to knock a slate off the cave it was leaned on somehow. If I'd only glued it to it, she'd still be with me.

I know, a lot of horror stories, but I'd way rather people learn from my mistakes!

Barbie

[Brengun]

I must have been overfeeding and even though I siphoned out uneaten food every day, I woke one day to find a white worm plague in the tank.
There were litterally 100's of them on the glass.

I made a makeshift tank with heater and airstone in a bucket, transferred the zeb juvis to the bucket of aged stable water from the whiptail tank and then completely tore down the zebs tank and neuked every worm out of there.

I filled the tank with aged stable water from a 4ft whiptail tank.

I tossed out all the plants. Steralized the filter and swapped it with a spare internal filter from another tank. I took out the sponge filter and installed a longer airstone.

The only furnishing now is a long piece of tile elevated to 1cm which covers half the floorspace in the tank.

I also added a couple of handfulls of aged gravel from the whiptail tank to one corner to help the bio recover. I added stability liquid for a few days afterward and the water perameters seem to be pretty good now.

I also seldom put a light on over their tank now as the zebs don't seem to like it. I feed once now only very late at night when the house is quiet and most of the lights are out.

The most excellent news is my zebs seem to be much happier and healthier. I spy on them in the dim night light with binoculars and they are all eating and zooming about very well.

[Joby]

Good to hear they are doing well