woke up to a fish in trouble

[PPulcher]

Strange thing this morning. I have a tank with some sub-adult killies (Fp. gardneri 'Lafia') that appeared a week or so after the male in the tank died. There were two males and one female, plus the original adult female. One of the males was smaller (must have hatched later) and I found it upside down on the bottom of the tank. The fish was breathing. Lacking any time to do much about it I simply netted it out and put it into another tank empty of fish.

The fish was healthy last night and eating fine. I wonder if the other male beat on it, but there were no shredded fins or anything. The rest of the fish were fine, and I even spotted a couple more fry in there.

No biggie I guess, but I'm perplexed.

[ChrissyFishy]

I wanted those once until I read that the males can be aggressive to each other. I don't have room to keep the males in seperate tanks so I didn't get them. Someone told me later that lots of killies that are peaceful will still attack other males sort of like Bettas. A store told me that they don't get killies in very often because the males will kill each other in their small tanks.

[PPulcher]

The males do get aggro when there are females around, so that is the problem perhaps. Often a larger group of just males works fine. The fish flare at each other and spar a bit, but they don't have much to fight over. I've got a bunch of bachelors of the same fish and see this often.

[Melody]

Interesting, I thought it was a 'can't keep males together' thing too. That's what happens when you don't read the details I guess. :laugh: That's me I'm making fun of Chris, not you. Sounds like you both know much more about them than I do.

I'm sorry to hear that you lost one, its especially discouraging when they've been healthy. Great that you're getting eggs & fry though!

[PPulcher]

Okay, now this is REALLY strange.

I plunked the struggling fish in a fishless tank right. I came home from work yesterday and looked in the tank and could not find it. Great. So tonight as i was preparing to do a water change on the tank and look for the corpse, I spot the little bugger swimming around!! At first I thought I was seeing things or it was a reflection of some kind.

Now I'm guessing he was just stunned or something when the timer put the lights on.:eek:

[Katalyst]

I swear its the wacky killies...The male you gave me for the lone female I had is just fine. The female however decided she could fly, jumped while I was feeding them onto and flopped into the heat registry! Needless to say the husband wasn't happy to take it all apart this evening. I have absolutely no luck with killies.

[PPulcher]

D'oh! They are crafty. I understand that they jump sometimes because they are looking for new habitat. Unfortunatley HVAC systems won't do for them.:mad:

It's not looking good for the dozen fry I've got right now. They all look like males! I'm going to have to try another spawning.

[Katalyst]

D'oh! They are crafty. I understand that they jump sometimes because they are looking for new habitat. Unfortunatley HVAC systems won't do for them.:mad:

It's not looking good for the dozen fry I've got right now. They all look like males! I'm going to have to try another spawning.

I think I should send my gularis to your house for winter vacation lol.

[PPulcher]

Those things are so big they would probably eat most of the fish I've got!

[Katalyst]

Those things are so big they would probably eat most of the fish I've got!
They've gotten bigger! And the second female I had turned out to be a male. I'm letting him grow a bit before I introduce him to the gruesome twosome downstairs. :)