I have been keeping tropical fish on and off since fourth grade in 1965. Life happened a few times and fish keeping got put on hold. All kinds of freshwater fish paraded before me and a lot of them spawned and rewarded me with fry that grew to adults. Except for Aplocheilus linneatus, a Nothobranchius sp. and a single male Blue Gularis no killifish. Those Killies were a teaser gift from a friend trying to lure me into Killifish. That man, Greg Simpson, was a friend known since childhood who, sadly , has since passed away. To say that he was nutty about Killifish would be the classic understatement of all time. I saw his fish room many times and helped him do things in it. Well, anyway, fast forward to now. I got a tank and set it up this past spring. Amazing the things you never forget. Set that thing right up and it ran like a Swiss watch. Now, for reasons unknown, Killifish came into my mind. Maybe because my previous efforts were so fruitless. I like to have things happen. So, I looked up the AKA on this interwebby thing. After thinking about it for a little while I sent my check and enlisted. Got my beginner gardneri and also a pair of Pachypanchax playfairii. Being a spook on Facebook's Killifish Lounge I'm learning tons ! I'm trying things and watching the fish and things are happening. This is going to work for me. The tanks are beginning to multiply, eliciting frowns from She Who Must Be Obeyed, but so what? What's she going to do ? Take my birthday away ? One thing puzzles me. Videos on Facebook show tanks that aren't all that pristine. I am anal beyond belief about aquarium maintenance . Water changes come about 3 to 5 times weekly. I am really starting to like the bare tank look. No dirt to be seen. I love that. And, I'm making mops and watching the fish go in and out of them and everything seems to be working like the Beginners Guide and Success With Killifish says it does. I'm looking forward to different fish and culturing live foods and playing with peat moss for Annuals. Me ? I'm having a ball !

Killies are a world unto themselves! We have you now *evil laugh*

Well, for just starting out , things are going pretty good. For some reason I got a little discouraged and even let the thought cross my mind that I would give up on these Killifish and go back to cichlids and Bettas. My male gardneri harassed , hounded and killed my females. That really honked me off because I went to great pains to acquire them and people really helped me to get a foothold in this, but I harvested a few eggs and I wound up with four healthy fry. One jumped out through the tiniest crack ever and landed in a 5 gallon bucket with a small amount of water in it. The experience was too much for him and he perished three days later. I lowered the water level for insurance and am now all the wiser in knowing that a one quarter fish can jump like an adult. The remaining three are healthy, robust, eating very well and growing like weeds. I am hoping that all are females but I see color spots in the fins of one. My Pachypanchax playfairii are alive and that's about it. I think they are runts. I've had them for three months now and I really thought they'd be much bigger by now. The male is about 2 inches and the female is half that. Somebody put me in the KCC for them but I can't see myself making much of a contribution with what I have. I got another pair of Killies in December from a local pet shop. They had them as Green Panchax but a picture I put on the AKA Facebook thing resulted in someone calling them Golden Wonders. Not so ! I have been scrutinizing them with a hairy eyeball and I conclude that they are definitely not linneatus. The ventral fins are not the long elongated linneatus type. These are Aplocheilus panchax. I'm sure of it. So, anyway, it's winter but not for much longer and the fish will liven up in spring. As of this writing there has been a new moon and the fish are acting differently. Fish do notice things like that. Take care of your fish.

Are they A. panchax or A. blockii?

And the P. playfairii were always VERY heavy feeders when I kept them long time ago, which meant lots of water changes.

All the species you have are excellent jumpers (feed them fruit flies to see just how good they can jump ;) ), so make sure to keep the tanks well covered.

I am 99 percent certain they are Aplocheilus panchax. I have looked at them intently and compared with many pictures. They are not blockii. Today I did a water change and discovered a tiny fry that appeared on his own. That was pretty cool. If this is happening then my conditions must be OK. I pestered everybody half to death on the AKA Killifish Lounge Facebook with a hundred newbie questions and I think I'm getting this now. Edd Kray admonished me several times that this is my puzzle to figure out and, finally, some of the pieces are falling into place. Some of the things I'm doing may elicit a few raised eyebrows but it's working for me. I'm not overly thrilled with the gardneri. They're pretty but that's all I can say for them. I like the Aplocheilus species and the Pachypanchax. I like that torpedo shape and how they act. I have three adult male gardneri and they are HUGE ! Didn't know they got that big. They have a body almost like a tadpole. Heavy thick upper body. I had them together at one point after they murdered their wives and they fought like tomcats. Had to separate them. That mouth grabbing and rolling around violently was fun to watch but I separated them anyway. As tiny as my three gardneri fry are they are exhibiting a tendency to do the same even at this tender age of one month. If one turns out to be a female, well then great, but I won't cry over not having them. My interests lie more with my others. One final comment. I got one of those round black plastic brine shrimp hatcheries and I could not be more pleased. The easiest way ever to hatch out BBS. More than adequate for my small needs.

OK. I have egg on my face. After adamantly insisting that my new fish are Aplocheilus panchax, they are not. I went back to the pet shop to see if any were left and I bought the remaining two. Both females, or are they ? The smaller one could possibly be a male. I am not going to insist at all since, obviously, my eye isn't worth a hoot. Anyway, my fish are the Golden Wonder Aplocheilus linneatus. Careful examination confirms this. But, I'm not disappointed . Lately I saw two videos on You Who by a guy named "The Dave". Excellent videos well worth watching. One shows Golden Wonders hunting crickets and goes into a detailed explanation of their parietal eye and their extra lateral line on top of their heads. Also shows them eating some pretty big crickets. Eminently cool ! The other video is a detailed treatise on breeding. So actually I'm pretty happy with these fish and looking forward to keeping and breeding them long term. Not so happy with the gardneri. Belligerent little devils that just can't behave themselves. My fry are fighting amongst themselves and maybe if I had more that wouldn't be happening but I don't really care. I've raised Bettas on several occasions and these gardneri should be treated like Bettas. Nasty little fish these gardneri ! I like my Pachypanchax playfairii but the female isn't doing so well. She is a picky eater and isn't growing well at all. The male recently put on a good growth spurt and is a very pretty fish. I could very definitely like these fish. With what I have I am going to be a great disappointment to the Killifish Conservation Committee. But, there we are. Me ? I'm still having a ball !

Glad to hear you are still having a ball! Hadn't seen you post here or on facebook for awhile so was wondering if you were still going strong!

Oh yeah, still hanging tough. My gardneri fry, few though they may be, (3) are growing really good. One is coloring up and sure seems to be a male. Another one is very large and healthy and robust. Looks like a female too so maybe I will get something going with them. I haven't been posting so much because, frankly, I am kind of tired of it. I went ape for awhile and bugged everybody with a lot of Killifish newbie questions and I'm up to speed so far as I feel to need to be at this point. I read the AKA Facebook posts and I haunt this place but I've just backed off some. I spend all my time in my fish room watching the fish instead of a screen. But, I read a post on Facebook yesterday that mentioned a guy who had a 55 filled with dozens of pairs of australe and that got me excited. Sounds cool. I like those too and want to try them. I like my playfairii and want to keep them going too. The female came out of her doldrums by feeding her BBS and the male is growing and is a very handsome specimen. Really cool looking fish. A full grown 4 incher must be awesome. So, I'm hanging in there and having fun. Hope you are too !

Here we are in the midst of the plague ! My playfairii are getting nice. They even laid eggs after a water change last week. I really want to keep them going. Time now to do a dedicated mop set up in a separate tank. Things being the way they are these days I feel an urgency and sense of responsibility to do right with these fish. I hope all of you out there in AKA land are OK and your families are alright. Take care of your fish.

Great job with the playfairii! Better than tv.

Those Pachypanchax playfairii are looking really nice the bigger they get. I like them a lot. And you are right about being better than TV. I've seen every single episode of The Andy Griffith Show so many times I could just scream.

Lots of fun today. Water changes for everybody. While looking at the changed water in the bucket I saw fry ! Managed to save 5 little tykes. I suspect they are linneatus but there looks to be a difference in some. Perhaps playfairii ? Time will tell. Now, an hour later I spied one lone fry in the big tank with the big fish. Bold as a burglar he swam right out in plain sight. The male playfairii took a run at him but to no avail. How can something that small swim so fast ? No mop in there. They must have spawned into the Java Moss. That’s a really good plant to have. Got to get me a lot more of that. Very slow growing. What is going wild is my frogbit. It didn’t do much at all for the longest time but it now covers the entire surface of my 20 high and shows no sign of slowing down. Whether it is the tropical or European variety I don’t know. I have heard that the tropical variety flowers. Stay tuned to this Bat Channel. My one lone female gardneri I raised is growing very well. She is fat and healthy. Mayhaps Project Gardneri will yet bear fruit. So, all things considered, my killies are working out good. Me ? I’m still having a ball !

Wow ! Do linneatus fry ever pack on the size fast ! Growing like weeds !

Most killies tend to do that - especially when well cared for. Keep up the good work.

Things are still chugging along although not in the way I had hoped. I lost all my gardneri except for one male. I lost my male playfairii and the female is a runt. But, I have Aplocheilus lineatus in abundance. These are the fish that should be the first for beginners. I learned a lot of the basics with this fish. My efforts at keeping live foods is going very well. I am having excellent success with Grindal worms and fruit flies. The fish love them and I think it helps with growth. My lineatus are all good healthy fish. So, I have my mind on other fish now. Not in replacement of but in addition to. Nothobranchius guentheri are something I want and would be good as a first soil spawner. I want to try my hand at another plant spawner too. The gardneri were a bit belligerent for my tastes but they are pretty and I'll try them again someday. I was thinking about Aphyosemion(?) australe. The Gold variety. I thought that I could help do my part to advance the AKA agenda by breeding these and sprinkling them into my local fish/pet shop. I like the color and look of them too. Well, anyway, I hope to have fry of something else besides Golden Wonders. I like Killies. They are a challenge that I'm glad I took up.

Well, here I am after one full year in the AKA and having completely failed with gardneri and playfairii. I have Golden Wonder Aplocheilus lineatus and I am having great success with them. I have no trouble at all producing and raising fry. I don't pick eggs or let them hatch with the adults. I put a mop in with the adults for a week and then move it to a 2 1/2 gallon hatching tank. They hatch out and then I move the fry to a five gallon to grow out. It's a lot of fun raising one species only. I see behaviors and activities that I never expected to see. I think the fry are too small to take BBS right from the start so I feed microworms and vinegar eels for about 4 days then newly hatched BBS. They get Grindal worms after a month and they are eating wingless fruit flies at 6 weeks or so. The growth is rapid after they start eating flies.  One thing I have noticed with my method is that I see fry hatching at about 7 days instead of the 12 to 20 days that Ed Warner talks about in his book. Temperature is 75 degrees and water is 100 to 130 PPM before adding 4 teaspoons salt per 10 gallons. I had a dubious flirtation with straight R/O water that I abandoned but it had the benefit of ridding me of any and all snails. In one 5 gallon I have cyclops ! Don't know where they came from. I bought some Vesicularia dubyana Java Moss at a pet shop last summer but nothing else. Yes, they are cyclops. They match the picture in my Innes Book. Bigger ones with egg sacs on their hindquarters and very small ones without. I suppose the fry are eating them but I have not observed them doing so. So, anyway, I'm still having a ball. Up to six tanks now with only my lineatus.

An interesting development. I have one Aplocheilus lineatus Golden Wonder fry with a pronounced dark spot where the vertical stripe would be on the wild type fish. There are also several others that show this to a lesser degree. I was told by a member on the Facebook group that this could happen and he was right. I will keep my eye out for more.
Another thing is that I had a little runt lineatus and I should have culled him but I liked him and kept him. He took off and had a big growth spurt and is now maturing into a magnificent specimen. The things you see when are maintaining a single species !
Awhile back Gary Elson had an article in a recent JAKA and said that everyone should try their hand at maintaining a single species for a while. I understand why now. So much can be learned about a fish by focusing on just one.

Glad to read you are still having fun!

What happened with the Gardner? Did they bloat and die? They don't tolerate a rich diet for long.

Yes, it's fun, this Killifish keeping. They are very interesting fish. Some of the reading I've been doing lately in the JAKA and other sources has got me looking at the Fundulus species. I guess some more tanks are in my future.
The gardneri just kind of wasted away on me. They were picky eaters and often would not eat at all for days at a time. The females were the first to go. It's a shame too because I thought they were really nice fish. Same thing with the playfairii. Just not robust or healthy. My store bought Golden Wonders eat, breed and thrive like Convict Cichlids. No stopping them.
Another interesting development today. It's springtime in Montana and the mountain snowpack that feeds the Yellowstone River is melting and feeding it. My tap water is coming out at 60 PPM.

Hello,

That is kind of strange for gardneri. In my experience they are not timid and will take any food given. My problem with them is that they are gluttonous and will over eat, bloat and die. I had playfairi briefly and they also seemed pretty tough.

I hope you can find some Fundulus to try. Fundulus zebrinus and Fundulus kansae are native to Montana and, while photos look rather dull, I have seen zebrinus in the flesh and they are awesome.

If you would like to try some Fundulopanchax scheeli let me know. They have no problem with dried food and living in community.

Tyrone,
Thank you for that offer of the F. scheeli but I'm going to stick with my lineatus for now and keep my eyes open for Fundulus. The Fundulopanchax species are very pretty but I like dull silvery minnow looking fish for some strange reason.
Thank you also for that information on Fundulus zebrinus and F. kansae. I recently acquired the Peterson Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes after seeing the NANFA website. I'm thinking about joining that organization as keeping native fishes appeals to me.

Well, after much thought I decided on a new Killifish. It isn't going to be the native Fundulus zebrinus I hoped to find close to my home. A 500 year flood on the Yellowstone River last month has effectively put the kibosh on that idea. Pretty sure that population is well downstream if they were even there. It isn't going to be Fundulopanchax gardneri either. I'm still hurt after the miserable failure I had with them. But . . . there is one fish that has always caught my eye and upon seeing them for sale in this months BNL F&E list I got ahold of the guy and ordered three pairs of Aphyosemion australe Orange-Red strain hybrid. I know this is a common fish that everyone has probably had but I like their looks. Since joining the AKA in 2019 I've learned a few things that will help me that I didn't know when the Gardneri beat me up. I sure hope this works. I want fry from these fish. Fry that grow up and give more fry.

I got my three pairs of Aphyosemion australe Orange/Red at the end of August. They were in the mail for over five days on some pretty warm days but all six fish arrived alive. Now I'm over fifty days in with them and no eggs and no fry. I did see one egg just before the female ate it. The pairs are in separate tanks that have mops and tons of Java Moss. They eat well and appear very healthy. They sure are pretty but that's all , just pretty , not prolific. I am never going to get another Killie ever again that people say is so easy to breed. Next time it will be the kind that nobody has any success with. Maybe then my luck will change.

Medric,

Maybe something happened during shipping? I have heard that some fish shipments have been affected (sterilized) by x-rays.

F.P Gardneri are SUPER easy! If I remember correctly, I got a trio in July and they are multiplying like crazy. Just last week I gave a friend two trios (2 males and four females) and the males are almost all the way colored up.

I have the trio in a 5 gallon tank with a plastic log and a bunch of guppy grass and a sword plant in the back. The tds is about 175 and the ph of the water is around 8. My water comes from a well that has a softener on it. I feed them flake food in the morning and crumble some of it for the fry. I have taken around 20-30 fry out and there are still 15-20 that are big enough to see. I change about 40-50% water weekly.

The male continuously searches for the females and breeds with them. they are all healthy and prolific!

If at first you don't succeed try try again.

Thank you Dennis. I heard about that X-Ray thing you mentioned. I suppose anything is possible. My pH is close to 8.0 and my TDS runs at 60 PPM. I have an R/O unit and I keep it there. I add 4 teaspoons aquarium salt per 10 gallons of water and do weekly 50 % water changes. I read one source that says the eggs are light sensitive so I put Salvinia in the tanks. My tanks are not brightly lit but adding that top cover changed the fishes behavior. They are much more out and about now. They weren't exactly shy and retiring before but they are much more active now. Funny how such a small change can have such a big effect. I watched one pair swimming upside down and spawning into the Salvinia Rasbora Het style. That pair spawns continuously everywhere , into the sand and sponge filter and the mops and plants. I sure thought I would find fry by now so something must be going on that I do not observe. I rule out fungus because I figure I would see that. I also have no snails at all . Maybe I better give up on the au naturale method and do like a real Killie keeper does and pick eggs. Maybe my laziness is thwarting me.

I wouldn't give up just yet. In my own limited experience and from what I have heard these Killifish are super easy to multiply without picking the eggs.

I agree having a canopy of plants to block the light in over half of the tank works great for me. The only thing different in my tank from yours is the TDS is lower in your tank, which isnt a bad thing. And salt I do not use salt in that tank. Also, I do about 30% water changes.

I mostly feed Flake food and crumble a bit for any unseen fry that may be in there.

What size are they?

wrote on Oct 25^th, 2022 at 8:47am:

I wouldn't give up just yet. In my own limited experience and from what I have heard these Killifish are super easy to multiply without picking the eggs. I agree having a canopy of plants to block the light in over half of the tank works great for me. The only thing different in my tank from yours is the TDS is lower in your tank, which isnt a bad thing. And salt I do not use salt in that tank. Also, I do about 30% water changes. I mostly feed Flake food and crumble a bit for any unseen fry that may be in there. What size are they?

My three pairs are all adults of 2 1/2 inch length. The females are a tiny bit smaller but they are all plump and well grown. One female is aggressive toward her mate and bullies him. Never seen that before. Another female is shy and retiring but not to the point of exhaustion from her mates advances. The third female is a party girl. She loves her mate and goes looking for him. The full range of female expression in these three individual females. Well , anyway , I keep up my vigil and look for fry every day. I keep them well fed and my plants are flourishing and provide ample cover for any youngsters that may appear.

Anybody read that article in the JAKA Volume 55 Number 2 where the guy went to Gabon ? He talked about the fish he was collecting being very touchy about being handled. He couldn't net them without them croaking on him.
Last week I was doing water changes and I got one of my australe in the siphon hose. They are very curious about that siphon hose and I watch like a hawk and I stay ready to jerk it away from them but last week one got pulled in. I caught her but released her immediately . She died a few seconds later. She was smaller than the tube diameter so she couldn't have gotten squished so I have to assume they are soft bodied and delicate. Great huh ? Dang fish !

Way back when, before the dawn of time, an engineer friend and I built a centralized filter system for around a dozen small killi tanks - 2.5, 10, 20L.
Each tank had a return that was simply a bit of vinyl hose that in turn had one of those 'inlet filter' things you get for power filter inlets shoved into it.

The central filter was a wet/dry filter, where 'dry' part had a 'drip plate' comprised of an old UGF filter plate, atop a bucket full of 'bio balls' which were smallish orange plastic things, very spiky. The wet part was the same - I had won a big trash bag full of the things in some fish club raffle somewhere and had really no other use for it.

Well, on occasion, one of the inlets would come off and some killies or others, usually gardneri (I grew a LOT of gardneri this way, the filter actually worked great except for the occasional overflow in the sump), would travel up the hose. Through the manifold (a bunch of 1/2" and 1" PVC as I recall), then past the drip plate which didn't completely seal off the top of the dry section, past the bioballs into the wet section where they merrily swam around till I nettted them out. I did pull out the occasional deader from the dry section where it had gotten speared on a bioball.

I eventually put sponge filters on the inlets. That stopped the migration, but the noise of the filter system pump eventually annoyed me enough that I switched each tank to be a separate standalone tank with box & sponge filters. That didn't work nearly as well.

Moral: They're hardier than you think.

Hello,

In my experience AUS are quite tough and have never lost one to handling -- I have had them fall out of mops onto the floor and be fine.

What you can do is put a coarse sponge over the intake of the siphon. For fry tanks I use a finer sponge.

I hope your other fish avoid the same fate.

Thanks for the encouragement and experience guys. Plain old dumb things can happen and I probably forgot that but I'm a lot more cautious now.
On the plus side I found eggs in her tank and now I am waiting to see if they hatch out.