Hello all, I have been a member of AKA since November when I purchased my first killifish from aquabid. I figured it would be good to start with 1 male and 2 females with the intentions to someday breed them. I had previously gotten the tank all ready for them (20g long) and had it all cycled. Watching these fish grow up has been a real joy. I have only been into the hobby since September but quickly found that these were one of my favorite fish to keep.

I am running a big JBL canister filter on the tank with ADA substrate with some controsoil mixed in. I went way overboard in my opinion on the filtering and wish i would have used a matten filter or just a simple sponge filter. I have been contemplating converting over to a simpler filter setup such as a sponge filter, do you think this would be a good idea? What else i could do is set up that 10 gallon as a new home for the Killifish and do something else with the 20g long.

What I am looking for is to breed these Gardneri. The plan i have at the moment is to load up the middle of the tank with some java moss and hope they breed right in the tank and can live with the fry right off the start and then i can move the fry out. For some reason i have a fear of putting them in a breeder tank (5 gallon) and stressing them out. Right now i have a fully cycled 10 gallon and a 5 gallon with no water in it. I was thinking about making a spawning mop and giving them a go that way.

Another idea I had was to just get some eggs online and hatch them myself. Only dilemma is finding the proper species of killifish and the proper person to buy from.

Last question, One of my females is alot smaller then the other, she def gets picked on and i feel bad for her. Should i just leave it be or put her in another tank?

Anyways, i figured there were no posts on this forum so i would start this off.

I will post pictures asap.

Dan

Dan,

I definitely would separate the female being beaten on by your male,  I've never had a good outcome by leaving incompatible sized male/female together especially if the male is insistent on breeding.  I usually have several well mopped small tanks 2.5 gallon for separating such fish as a recuperation tank.

If you want to breed your fish in java moss or plants, I always remove the adults after a week of two of spawning and then wait.  Usually 3-4 weeks at 72 dgF is a good incubation period for gardeneri.  After 6 weeks I'd try it again if no fry are observed.

Prior to breeding I usually separate the fish I am going to breed for a week or so, to build up the female.  Another way is to use a bare tank with mops, breed them in the mops then remove the mops to a different tank for incubation and hatching (using consistent water and temperature).

A good beginners fish is any of the garderneri species, except mamfense which are more fussy.

I hope this helps, Jim Langan, AKA Webmaster

Hi Daniel, I am returning to the Killi hobby after a 30 year absence. I do not currently have any killis but I am working on setting up a small number of tanks so that I can get started again. I kept F. Gardneri in the 80's and maintained a trio (one male, two females), feeding them live & frozen foods. They were maintained in a small tank (5 Gal) without substrate, a sponge filter & three floating mops for egg deposition. Tank temp was 25 - 26 Deg C and eggs were maintained in shallow dishes of tank water until hatching. Fry were fed brine shrimp naupilli when hatched, followed by white worms as they grew. Found this to be very successful. Wanted to share what worked for me, hope this helps. See you are based in NH like me. Use e-mail anytime. Steve