Mos of us who try to raise killifish have our own preferred methods for producing fry. But some killikeepers have found that there are simpler methods that work very well. The following are a few examples.
“An approach of ‘benign neglect’ has worked wonderfully well” with Aphyosemion australe, reports Frank Louden. He breeds them in a 10 gallon tank with an undergravel filter and lots of watersprite, and collects fry on a regular basis.
“I get mostly males using this method,” he admits. “I have been told that young AUS will produce more males than females. As they grow older the ratio begins to even out and then as the breeders reach an older age, they produce many more females. This makes some sense in the ‘Darwinian’ mode of thinking, as the males come along first, their natural aggressiveness reduces the genetic pool to only the strongest, and then there are more females for the fittest males to breed with.”
Brad Higgins also does very well with killies such as AUS by putting them in 10 gallon tanks with a peat moss bottom and lots of Water Sprite (or India Fern in the UK). When fry appear, he pulls the breeders and begins to judiciously feed baby brine shrimp.
For substrate spawners, many use spawning containers (margarine tubs, small ceramic or glass bowls), but some use the divider method. A 4 inch high divider is placed in the center of a 10 gallon tank, with one side of the tank left bare and the rest filled with peat moss. The fish use the side with peat for spawning, while food, filters, and other equipment can be placed in the other. This method has proven useful for a number of the substrate spanwers, both annual and non-annual species.must be the best possible mate you can find.
Sexual selection is an aspect of killikeeping whose details have yet to be worked out for most species. However, it appears to involved with inherited male and female colors, and inherited preferences. Those individuals who readily recognize species recognition markings enjoy more reproductive success, thus perpetuating the species and their own selection criteria. – G.C.K.A. Newsletter, November 1998