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My annual killie attempt (Nothobranchius palmqvisti)

  • #21
Wow! That's awesome! Thanks for the explanation. I wish I had the space to get some aquariums set up...
 
  • #22
Probably Aphyoseimons or Fundulopanchax, I haven't decided which species from these families yet probably something mainly blue or purple. I enjoyed keeping & breeding several of these kinds years ago in my planted tanks. They are "large", colorful and non-annual. I think my initial pair of A. australes lived almost 3 years although they looked pretty haggard near the end there.

I used DIY CO2 (yeast & water) on my tanks and still had enough babies to sell here and there once in a while but perhaps I could have had more babies if I hadn't used the CO2? I've read that bright light also inhibits hatching and my tanks were always well lit for the plants. I also didn't seperate them most of the time until they got to an inch or so, so the parents probably gobbled a lot of the fry up too! LOL

Not sure for your water, but when I started injecting CO2 I found I could no longer get any fry from my rivulus in that tank. The adults were still spawning, but I never saw any more fry. As a disclaimer, my water is quite hard and I do not dilute it with RO. Because I inject CO2, I end up with a low pH (6.0) even though my water out of the tap is 8.2. Once again, the adults don't mind, but I can't hatch eggs in this tank.

You should do much better, I'm guessing, with your water qualities. I've never found my killies to be all that keen on eating their fry as long as they are well fed. But then again, there are plenty of hiding places for the liitle ones.
 
  • #23
Not sure what it will be like keeping fish this time, in the past I used tap water which tested at 7.8 or so. It's high ppm city tap water which runs through the condominiums sodium softener and probably old copper pipes too. I am using R/O cos I wanna raise some nice inverts and stuff this time. Always before my attempts with tiny Amano and Ghost shrimps died in a matter of days. I figure with a few small seashells in there it will harden the R/O up a bit. I suppose I could put a couple in the filter box. It's what I'm doing for my Geosesarma sp. "Red Vampire Crabs" filling their pools with R/O water with a few pieces of busted up shells in them.
 
  • #24
I'm really not the guy to ask about killies... I know just enough to get where I am right now :p Duane sure seems to know his stuff though (we met over at plantedtank.net when I started my planted tank stuff). I keep pond and nerite snails, and also amano and red cherry shrimps all in basically tap water (water conditioner is used to remove chlorine etc but no PH adjustments or anything) and my water is pretty dang hard (no water softener though).

Anyway, for the past 3 hours I've been trying to upload a video... and it finally worked (gave up waiting on the first to process and reuploaded it) It came out better than I could have expected, hope you enjoy it too!!

My 48hr. fry eating their evening BBS (Duane was not lying... These guys are fierce eaters!!)

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  • #25
Not sure what it will be like keeping fish this time, in the past I used tap water which tested at 7.8 or so. It's high ppm city tap water which runs through the condominiums sodium softener and probably old copper pipes too. I am using R/O cos I wanna raise some nice inverts and stuff this time. Always before my attempts with tiny Amano and Ghost shrimps died in a matter of days. I figure with a few small seashells in there it will harden the R/O up a bit. I suppose I could put a couple in the filter box. It's what I'm doing for my Geosesarma sp. "Red Vampire Crabs" filling their pools with R/O water with a few pieces of busted up shells in them.

My guess is that if your water is good for the shrimps, it will be fine for the killes. Just don't mix fancy dwarf shrimp with large killies.......:0o:

---------- Post added at 08:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 PM ----------

I'm really not the guy to ask about killies... I know just enough to get where I am right now :p Duane sure seems to know his stuff though (we met over at plantedtank.net when I started my planted tank stuff). I keep pond and nerite snails, and also amano and red cherry shrimps all in basically tap water (water conditioner is used to remove chlorine etc but no PH adjustments or anything) and my water is pretty dang hard (no water softener though).

Anyway, for the past 3 hours I've been trying to upload a video... and it finally worked (gave up waiting on the first to process and reuploaded it) It came out better than I could have expected, hope you enjoy it too!!

My 48hr. fry eating their evening BBS (Duane was not lying... These guys are fierce eaters!!)

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Sweet video Andrew! That looks like a healthy young notho :bigthumpup:
 
  • #26
It is teh cute!!! :-D

Very nicely shot, btw!
 
  • #27
Awesome video Andy I want to learn how to upload vids of stuff since my camera can make them. I always thought fry were just like little stomachs with eyes! LOL

I think if I try any shrimps it'll be the little red cherry shirmps cos they're cheap but pretty and if they die too I'm not out too much those colorless Amanos go for $5-$7 each at the LFS around here.
 
  • #28
And here we are about 1 week since hatching. They're doing well! And here are a couple quick shots to show their progress.
Andrew


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  • #29
That second shot is great....really shows how big the mouth is in relation to the body. Keep up the great work Andrew!
 
  • #30
Well, I don't think the fish look a whole lot different this week, but they're definitely bigger!! I'll include pictures of the tank along with the weekly pictures from now on to better show their growth. I tried counting them today while they had their morning feed, and I think there are 19. But I wasn't looking through all the bottom stuff either so, we'll say 19+ :) As far as size goes, I know they look small but I had to strain to find them before standing directly at the tank... So hopefully that helps give size perspective VS. now. Also, I am trying to get pictures of different fish, since some sex differences should be showing up any time now.
Enjoy!
Andrew

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  • #31
Such cute little magic-peat fish :-D
 
  • #32
Very cool! It's so fun to watch them grow up and develop their colors.
 
  • #33
Thanks swords :) Not really sure why, but I took a video today. They have already eaten, but it's a neat little tour of the tank. It does a really good job of sizing them for you.
Andrew

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  • #34
Great looking fry tank Andrew! No wonder those killies are doing so well :banana2:. Looks like the plants, snails, and shrimp are also healthy and growing.

Just an observation: those young fish look like they want more food. This is about the time I usually start increasing the amount of BBS I put in the tank. Ideally you want the bellies of the fry to be bulging. Otherwise everything looks perfect.

I have a feeling you will be posting about needing to reduce the population of rapidly growing fish in the next couple of weeks.

Duane
 
  • #35
Thanks for the tip Duane! Surely you mean when they're done eating and not always right? The above was a couple hours after I fed- here is shortly after the afternoon feed:
Andrew


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  • #36
Yes, those look like well fed fish. Keep up the good work :-D.
 
  • #37
I just realized I'm late on the update... so these are really super quick but really don't show much change. I manged to catch some color on one of their gills, and also finally managed to snap a picture of my "broken" fish. haha

Andrew

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  • #38
Feeder! LOL
 
  • #39
Thanks for the update Andrew! How big are the largest fish now? Perhaps time to start them on small frozen bloodworms. That bent spine fish needs to go to fishy heaven (the breeder you got those eggs from sold you some damaged goods :censor:). You will have colorful males in no time. Keep us posted.

Duane
 
  • #40
Hi Duane, I'm really having a hard time deciding on a size to say. I have one fish that is definitely the largest (about center photo) and another that is not far behind that one. But most are fairly small I think. I knew that one fish didn't look quite right, but I could never get a decent photo of him to see what the deal was before that. I will send him to visit his ancestors.
Andrew

PS- strangely my tropica fern (lower left corner) I tossed in this tank is finally showing some new growth.

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