Celestial pearl danios are super popular in nano tanks and with good reason seen as they are such attractive little fish. But what kind of set up do they need and what are they like to keep?
I've had my eye on these fish for months now but I've always been put off by their relatively high cost and their reputation of being shy, plus thinking they don't look as attractive in real life than they've looked online. However, I took the chance a week ago now and got six (two males four females) for my smaller tank, and I'm glad I did. They're incredible little fish, both in their appearance and their behavior. They are a beautiful colour and I've had no issues with them being shy despite having an open, light sandy substrate along the front half of my tank, and they will happily spend as much time out in the open by themselves than exploring the dense foliage in the other half. I agree with everything you've said in your video, and you've done a great job trying to film these little nippers, and I'd highly recommend them to any aquarist!
Hey Lucas! That's really interesting to hear that your CPDs are happy on a light substrate, mine were very skittish on pale sand but I'm thinking now that it may have been something else about the tank they didn't like. It was perhaps too shallow for them, rather than too bright, or maybe mine are just picky, who knows :D !! (Thanks for saying the filming was okay, as beautiful as CPDs are, they are a pain to get in focus :D!!)
I sometimes wonder if CPDs are only shy if kept in community. I have mine by themselves and holy cow, they’re bold. So much personality for such a tiny fish. I don’t know why they have that reputation for being shy.
I have them with neons, rummies embers and shrimps. The Celestial Danios are definitely the most aggressive, territorial and are constantly going for the neocaradina shrimps(none of the tetras are bothered by them). I was a bit surprised after watching many videos! Anyway, they're amazing and so beautiful. Maybe best kept on their own..?
I was nervous adding them to my 20gL because I have them in a tank with blue neo shrimp and I am very protective of my shrimp. However, my tank is heavily planted including lots of java moss and my shrimp have been just fine. I don't see the teeny tiny babies anymore, but I am still getting shrimp babies - they're just waiting longer to come out of hiding.
Great video thank you. I’ve been keeping a group of five of these for several months now. They share their tank with White Cloud Mountain minnows, medaka and variatus platys. They are extremely tolerant to low temperatures. We live on a narrowboat and the water temperatures are regularly between 10 > 12C. They are still active and feeding. The same goes for their tank mates.
One thing I've learned about CPD is they like to emulate the behavior of other fish species around them. I've put them alone in their own tank and they where very shy. As soon as I added guppy in there, they all came out and started to act very socially towards me. I was curious so I've repeated the experience under many diverse circumstances and different species of fish. If they're put with another shy fish they stay shy. If they're put with a social fish, they become social. If they're put with a fish that moves alot, they swim more.... It's fascinating.
I've recently got myself back into the aquarium hobby after being away for about ten years. My 20 gallon tank has been set up for about three months and all I have at the moment are five Dwarf Rainbowfish and two Amano shrimp. My local stockist has CPD's in stock and I was looking to purchase, but a little unsure due to their reputation of being extremely shy, but after watching your informative video I will do so😃 Hope to see more videos in the future.
Hey Geraint! Always good to hear from a a fellow Amano keeper and that's great to hear that you are getting back into the hobby! The only thing I have found so far that makes my celestials shy is putting them in a shallow tank with a very light substrate (it was a scaper tank with sand). They hated that, so id say they like at least 20cm depth, but I'm sure that's not a problem for you if your tank is 20gallons! Best of luck!! :D
i found a pellet food small enough for the danios. it's the dr bassleer baby & nano s. my adult danios even eat the bassleer regular m. they sink slowly and are the highest protein content i could find in any food. maybe give it a try, my danios and even amanos go absolutely crazy for it :D
I’ve got 11 in a 20 long with 2 sparkling gourami. They aren’t shy at all and spend the day chasing each other everywhere. It’s densely planted with high light/co2. No shyness at all.
My CPDs behave very similar to how you described. I feed mine fluval bug bites and don't seem to have any problems in them eating it intact they love it
I found pellet food for triops. These are 1/3 to 1/2 millimeter in diameter. Even then pearl danios are finding it difficult to swallow but they get used to it.
I'm setting up a 20 gallon tank soon and I've been trying to decide between Celestial Pearl Danios and Heterandria Formosa. I do think the CPD is a prettier fish and after your video they pulling into the lead as my preferred fish for this setup. Thank you for the excellent video!
Set my tank up last week. Eyed up fish at the shop and fell in love with these they look like lil trout. Thanks for the vid hopefully get them some lil buddies
My celestials are very confident too & doing so great in my planted 20 gallon w guppies & corydoras & ghost shrimp. I got them when they were 1/4 inch I thought they may not live (I ordered them online) but they have absolutely thrived so far ❤️
Great video, really informative about CPDs! People have been really conservative to keep them in warmer temperatures (No more than 26 degrees C) since they come from a sub tropical hilly climate but they can do well in a wide range!
I have 6 tiny ones in a heavily planted 20L nano and they seem to be doing very well. They are feisty, interact with each other a lot, chase each other around, sometimes the males duel, use all of the plant enriched areas.. I do not plan on breeding them as I am not even sure if I want to keep them long term. I do consider moving them to a bigger 40L tank in the near future once I find a proper shelf. I do have some red cherry shrimp in there aswell, not sure how successfully they'll manage to breed since these are very active fish and will cover the space of the tank quite quickly and probably find the shrimplets.
I second the other comment on here, you should have many more subscribers!. Your videos are great quality and you have great content. It does take time to gain subscribers. Keep up the good work! Subscribed!
Thanks Rick, that's very kind of you to say - I've reached that point where I just like making videos so if the subs arrive that's great, but if not i'll still be here :D
@@tinymenagerie Good approach! I considered starting a channel however I know i would not have stuck with it. I am sure it takes time to edit and make a video that is presentable.
Hi. This is the first video I've seen on your channel and it so impressed me, I paused and subscribed (No.716) even before the halfway point. Excellent videography and voiceover throughout (great to hear a UK accent, btw). I've only been in the hobby a couple of years and my preference is nano fish/shrimp, so Tiny Menagerie is a great fit for me. (So far, I have a tank with longfin blue Leopard danio's in with Amano shrimp, a tank with longfin WCMM's and tanks with RCS, Blue Diamond neo's and green Babaulti shrimp. Oh, and Zebra nerite and Rabbit snails). Going forward, CPD's are at the top of the list of species I'd like to keep in the near future, hopefully in a biotope type set-up (100 litre tank: 91 × 38; × 30 cms) with possible tank mates, depending on availability being; Rosy Loaches (which I've seen referred to variously as either a Yunnanilus or Petruichthys species), Red dwarf rasbora (Microrasbora rubescens), Sparkling gourami (Trichopsis pumila - guess which video I'm watching next 😀). With this in mind, I've been reading up about them via various databases/guides, however if you should happen to read this ( I know it's been a few months since the video was posted), I'd be very interested to know what water parameters you're keeping yours in (Ph, Gh, Kh, temp.) ?
Thank you Peter (AKA subscriber 716 :D) yes I am from the UK, based in not-so-sunny Staffordshire, although my accent is a bit southern from living in Cheltenham for a while. Babaultis are high on my list of shrimp to get next - it's either them or orange eyed blue tigers -I can't decide and don't really have the tank space to keep them all :) CPDs are probably my favourite fish at the moment, they have a lot of character, they're beautiful, they get on easily with each other and other fish, they are incredibly easy to breed and they're easy to feed. Perfect nano fish in my opinion. To be honest I don't really watch the exact chemistry of my water and tend to go by plants and algae growth or the types of microfauna that are thriving to know what tank conditions are like. I know my pH runs at just above 7 if I don't use copious driftwood to bring it down - so its probably about 6.5-6.8, and if I get an infusoria bloom then its time for a water change and good clean out. But I generally just let the tanks run themselves and if anything looks amiss I'll switch a few plants around to balance things out. Temp is set to 23 degrees currently. Oooh have you seen rosy loaches for sale anywhere? I have a maiden head aquatics and ripples waterlife near me but neither have ever had them in stock!
@@tinymenagerie Thank You for the reply Lorraine (☺). Sadly, I've not seen Rosy Loaches available for sale. I do have a friend in the trade, who when the subject came up, informed me he'd once kept and bred them in one of his personal tanks. When the time comes I'm looking for them, I'll see if he can help. If not, then there are alternatives.
Heyo! sorry for the late reply. Personally I would go for CPDs they have so much personality and watching them showing off to each other and sparring is very fun, plus they are incredibly easy to breed.
@@tinymenagerie Ahh fair enough, I'm not personally interested in breeding but they do look like a lovely fish. Would they do well as part of a community tank? Would love some shrimp and possibly some gouramis as well.
Great video. Full of good information. I have some CPDs on order and I get them next weekend, so I'm researching as much as possible and this video has been fantastic. Thank you.
My experience has been sadly different. I have a 10 gallon tank with a couple (2) ember tertras and live plants, about 2 months set up. I have attempted celestials three times now and have ended up losing every one, maybe initiated by aggression between them and subsequent fungal infections but even the aggressive Celestials also stopped feeding and were found dead with fungus. I am very careful with water changes etc, and my other 10 gallon, a cold water tank, has leopard, longfin zebra and White Clouds (too many fish, one would think) who are thriving. When I attempted a treatment to save the Celestials (API Primafix) it just hastened their demise, they died almost instantly! But the Ember tetras still carry on. The cold tank has pea gravel substrate and a Sicce Nano Micron filter with the carbon cartridge. The warm tank, a hang on back power filter. I do small water changes frequently and about 30-40% as needed. I am wondering if the Fluval stratum I spent so much $ on is a culprit in the warm tank issue? Or did one Celestial maybe introduce a disease, or could the fighting/fin nipping be what started this downhill cascade? Thank you for reading all this. I hate to give up on the Celestials what is going wrong, do I need to tear this whole tank apart, throw out the plants and stratum and start all over?
Brilliant video, very informative! Just wondering but do you know how many females should be with males? I've got some, but where very young, they've just started getting their colours and now there are more males to females!! Ive only got a 45l tank so dont want the females to become stressed!
Hi , is there somewhere i can download the background song? (Musica lenta - Melodias variadas) I can't seem to find the full song. I'll get some CPD in my new aquarium once it's completely setup :)
This is the first time I’ve heard they are nippy! Do you think it would be a bad idea to have Honey Gourami as tank mates because of their stringy lil pelvic fins?
Hey! In my experience Yes they will I’m afraid. Any shrimplets they find they will eat. And as soon as celestials get even slightly hungry they start hunting.
Hey Druvak! Thank you, to be honest my little tanks are my favourites so they get the most attention :D There were 5 celestials in the tank at the time of filming, that's about as many as I would put in a 25litre tank, otherwise it would start to look rather crowded.
This was a really helpfull guide! All tho i need help with something, my CPD are almost trasparent and i baerly see their spots, in fish store the colours were diffrent, btw i bought them yesterday, can you help me please how to make their colours be brighter?
Hey Petar, its likely they are stressed by something in the tank, in fish stores despite the bare tanks and small spaces fish can feel quite confident if they are in large numbers. Then in home tanks with less fish (or unfamiliar fish) around they get stressed. I would make sure they have lots of hiding places and the tank is not super bright, but even then celestials can take week or so to really settle into new surroundings so don't be too worried about them yet so long as they are eating. give them time to settle and I'm sure they will colour up.
@@tinymenagerie Thanks for this really good information, they are not probably stressed out, becouse the only other type of fish i have is a baby albino brisclenose pleco, however im planing to buy another CPD on Saturday (I curently have 4) and shud i but a litlle castle or something to hide in maybe?
@@tinymenagerie I know I’m a bit late, but what kind of plant is the reddish-orange one in the video? It’s very nice and I think it would look great in my tank.
