Clown killifish tank

[Beastije]

Finally, after months of waiting for the fish to grow up at the sellers, they are home. For you it may be no big deal as they must be available everywhere in the US, for me, nt even glasser imports them regularly, so one local breeder doing killifish and having these? A miracle.
I have three pairs, already reached maturity. Seller did not have excess females to sell, so sadly pairs it is.
They are in my 40 liter tank, 56 cm x 25 cm x 36 cm and it has been only few days since they arrived, but they are already flashing, sparring, checking the moss.

They are everywhere, not only on top where they spend their first stressed day. I have seen two males swimming side by side, upside down and all over, to impress one female who was so not interrested
I do not have decent picture of the fish, they move too much, but overall I very much love them. Wish me luck

 

[Colin_T]

Looks like you have some purple patches on the substrate. Is this the photo or do you have purple patches? If you do have purple patches then it's probably blue green algae (Cyanobacter bacteria).

You will probably find baby fish swimming around the surface because the eggs don't always stick to plants and they can sink to the substrate. Assuming there's no shrimp or snails in the tank, you should get eggs and young if the adults are well fed.

I used Java Moss and Water Sprite in my breeding tanks but regularly found babies just under the surface. I scooped them out with a cup and put them in a rearing tank.

If you don't get many eggs or young, move the prs into separate tanks for 2 weeks then move them back to the main tank or other tanks with different partners. You can use plastic storage containers instead of tanks, just make sure they have a lid because killifish jump.

Good luck and hopefully in a few months time you will be able to supply some to other people

 

[Beastije]

No cyanobacteria, just poor light, led light and oak leaves.
I have faunus after there for cleanup, as he is too heavy to climb to surface and moss to eat eggs. If they spawn regularly they should be able to produce enough eggs to best even the ramshorrns that are in the tank.
I would love to populate my tank first before selling. How much of these fish do you think i can have in this tank before it becomes too crowded, given their territories? 10 maybe?

 

[Colin_T]

10-12 adult fish should live in that tank but you won't get as many eggs because fish that aren't breeding tend to eat the other fish's eggs.

Snails will eat a lot of eggs in one night and the fish might be leaving them on the substrate.

If you want to breed fish successfully, you need to get everything alive out of the breeding tank except the fish being bred. You don't want snails, shrimp, hydra, planaria or anything else in the tank except the adult fish.

 

[Beastije]

Thank you. Question about feeding paramecium. I am growing cultures and I see the clown killifish in constant chasing, breeding behavior, so I expect there may be some fry at some 2 week point forward. When do I start feeding the tank paramecium? Given the density of surface plants there is zero chance of me spotting any fry, so should I just feed like every other day some volume of paramecium just to be safe? Will adults eat it too or will it foul the water? I expect by the time I will see the fry (if I get so lucky as to have any) they will be too big for the paramecium anyways...

 

[Colin_T]

If the paramecium culture is made from rotting plant matter, it could contain high levels of ammonia so you should check the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH of the culture before adding any to the aquarium.
If the culture does not have any ammonia, nitrite or nitrate and the pH is similar to the fish tank, then you can scoop some of the culture out with a glass or plastic container and add it to the tank each day.
If you do have ammonia, nitrite or nitrate in the culture water, use a fine micron screen to net out the paramecium and add them to the tank each day.

The adult fish will eat the paramecium too so feed the adults really well with other foods before adding paramecium. If you put the paramecium among the plants, some of it might be able to stay among the plants for the babies.

 

[Beastije]

Thank you. It is a lab culture I put in fresh/boiled/tank water ( three test containers, my first culture) and I feed it with yeast mixed in water with sugar (for bioencapsulation, if I understood the term correctly). I will test the water for ammonia and pH, for now it is still very clear, I can see some paramecium with my eye but water is not yet cloudy or saturated, it has only been running 4 days now.
I need to get micron screen somewhere, but if the estimates for eggs/fry hatching are correct I have at least 10 days to figure it out.
The one I got the culture from said he uses a fresh water vial turning it upside down and that the paramecium climbs there. No idea how to achieve that yet, but will try that harvest too.
So exciting

 

[Colin_T]

You should start a few more cultures each week so if one crashes, you still have the others.

 

[Beastije]

I have three now and i didn't know the appropriate volume so one is two liter one is one and a half and the last is just a liter. I should start a new one every week? And when should I discard the previous one? What is the lowest recommended volume, i do not have that many fish to feed this to, so i don't need six three liter bottles do I?
I also read that i should feed every few days /every week/every time the culture clears...so many conflicting information...

 

[Colin_T]

The culture should be clear (not milky cloudy) before using it. The cloudy stuff is bacteria or yeast and this is food for the paramecium.

Baby fish should be fed 3-5 times a day so you want to add paramecium every day while there are baby fish in there that are too small to eat newly hatched brineshrimp.

Small paramecium cultures are harder to keep going for long periods due to the smaller water volume. You basically need at least one culture for each day you are feeding fry. Most egglaying fry need to be about 2 weeks old before they can take newly hatched brineshrimp so you would need at least 14 small cultures or a few big cultures. My cultures were generally 40 litres plus. I used large plastic storage containers with lids and an airline bubbling away in them. I had several cultures running at any time. However, I was also breeding a lot of fish, but I would have at least a dozen small cultures or 2 or 3 big (40 litre cultures). Even if you aren't harvesting from a culture, it can develop and when you need it, there should be heaps of food for any babies.

Even if you only have a few baby fish to feed, you need sufficient food in the water so the babies don't have to waste energy swimming all over the tank looking for food. Ideally you want the babies in small containers with about 4-6 inches of water in. You want enough food in the water so the babies only have to move an inch to get food.

 

[Beastije]

I have removed the faunus ater and will most likely need to remove the ramshorns, but that is a job for later
For now some pictures. They move a lot so hard to focus

 

[Beastije]

I just spotted one baby fry! Hidden in the surface hornwort. I know this is just the beginning, but yay
I removed some of the ramshorns, but not all and it seems it sort of works

 

[Colin_T]

You need to get all of the snails out because one snail can eat several eggs per day and with the females only producing a few eggs each day, you won't have many survive with snails in the tank.

 

[Beastije]

I am trying, continually removing snails, but hey, something survived, so a good start

 

[Beastije]

Managed to get the fry on the video, is growing up nicely. Seems like there is only one fry there, though for weeks I assumed there is nothing so who knows.

I did a maintenance on the roots after I took this picture, cut them a bit above the substrate cause this is just too much