GaryofMontreal
Nov 16th 2008, 06:42 PM
529
Aphyosemion ogoense
The Great Killifish Conspiracy
Gary Elson
When your name starts with “kill”, you’re born to bad press. Don’t worry, any aquarist who goes looking for killifish is not going to get a creature with gang tattoos and a chainsaw. Killies are a largely peaceful group of small fish who get their name from the old Dutch word for “stream” or “brook.”
They are about as diverse as a group of fish can be. Many hobbyists keep annual killifish, which come from water bodies that disappear during the tropical dry season. Adults are short-lived, but the species carries on through (for us) easily stored eggs that rest in moist soil for anywhere from a month to a year. South America gives us the Pearl annuals, and the plains of east Africa have Nothobranchius, a Genus of brilliant red and blue jewels.
Call me picky, but I like my fish in water, rather than in bags of peat moss. This article will be about Aphyosemion killies – colourful easy to keep fish that live as long as the average tetra (2-3 years).
Ecology and your fishtanks
Aphyosemions come from West Africa, mainly Nigeria, Cameroon, the Congo region, and Gabon. Their Latin name refers to “banner fins”. They come in many colours: reds, blues, yellows, oranges, greens, copper and whites. Many are as brilliantly coloured as marine reef fish.
If you look like a neon sign and are under two inches long, life in a West African stream can be challenging. Most “Aphyos” live on the edges, in water too shallow or too shaded to support larger predators. They don’t like community tank life. Like South American Apistogramma dwarf cichlids, in the wild, they like submerged leaf litter and water only a few centimetres deep. Their native streams are very different from Amazonian ones though. A West African brook running through deep forests for great distances doesn’t get warmed by the sun. Most Aphyosemion like unheated tanks in the 18-22C range. Some will breed as low as 16C.
This is good, as they’re solitary creatures, best kept in single-species 3 to 10 gallon aquaria. Killiekeepers never have one tank. Still, an unheated five gallon tank with a sponge filter, a tight lid (they are remarkable jumpers!) and room lighting is an easy thing to find place for. I have my killies on a rack with the tanks end out – three feet of rack will hold four tanks with room to spare.
I like to keep a pair per tank, with 20 percent water changes every two weeks. Male killies can be like “Betta-lite” – they don’t like each other. In a larger tank, groups of four or more males get along fine, constantly displaying their fins at each other. Two males in a small tank will rapidly trim themselves down to one.
The fascination
Killiekeepers are very loyal to their pastime. These fish are more than nice to look at – they’re absorbing. If you don’t breed them, they can’t be replaced at the store. Killies can only be consistently gotten from killiekeepers. The fish-trade avoids these fish, as while a Barb may lay three thousand eggs at a shot, with all the fry easy to raise together in uniform batches, a healthy, well-fed killie pair will on average produce one to five eggs per day. Raising such small batches isn’t profitable, although it’s great fun.
I breed killies using acrylic yarn mops. Eggs can be picked off with wet fingers (only infertile ones burst) and put into separate containers for their ten to twenty one day (depending on the species) incubation. The eggs are perfectly transparent – a bonus for anyone who likes to watch embryonic development. They’re great for school biology classes. When they hatch, I use the true fish breeders wonder device, a turkey-baster, to drop the fry into a grow out tank. It’s that easy.
It’s also strangely social. Freshly picked eggs can be mailed to friends, as long as they get there before they hatch. Even the adults are hardy enough to last surprisingly long period in the mail. Killiekeepers form communities – everyone wants your rare fish, and you want theirs. People start out planning to sell pairs and end up trading or giving them away. There’s no area of the hobby where the “what goes around, comes around” cliché is truer.
I belong to Killi-Quebec. We meet four times per year, in various members’ houses across a distance of six hours by car. And because killie eggs can be bought through the American Killifish Association (serving our continent), from Europe and Asia or through Aquabid, the fact that I live in Montreal gives me no advantage for getting intriguing fish in comparison to friends living in villages along the Maine border, or in milltowns hours from a major airport. Killiekeeping is a hobby tailormade for Canada and its distances.
So you want more info?
So if this stage of the killie conspiracy has worked – you’re curious. For pictures of killies, and information on their ecology and keeping, check out the following sites:
http://www.killifish.f9.co.uk/Killifish/Killifish%20Website/Index.htm
http://www.aka.org (http://www.aka.org/)
Aphyosemion ogoense
The Great Killifish Conspiracy
Gary Elson
When your name starts with “kill”, you’re born to bad press. Don’t worry, any aquarist who goes looking for killifish is not going to get a creature with gang tattoos and a chainsaw. Killies are a largely peaceful group of small fish who get their name from the old Dutch word for “stream” or “brook.”
They are about as diverse as a group of fish can be. Many hobbyists keep annual killifish, which come from water bodies that disappear during the tropical dry season. Adults are short-lived, but the species carries on through (for us) easily stored eggs that rest in moist soil for anywhere from a month to a year. South America gives us the Pearl annuals, and the plains of east Africa have Nothobranchius, a Genus of brilliant red and blue jewels.
Call me picky, but I like my fish in water, rather than in bags of peat moss. This article will be about Aphyosemion killies – colourful easy to keep fish that live as long as the average tetra (2-3 years).
Ecology and your fishtanks
Aphyosemions come from West Africa, mainly Nigeria, Cameroon, the Congo region, and Gabon. Their Latin name refers to “banner fins”. They come in many colours: reds, blues, yellows, oranges, greens, copper and whites. Many are as brilliantly coloured as marine reef fish.
If you look like a neon sign and are under two inches long, life in a West African stream can be challenging. Most “Aphyos” live on the edges, in water too shallow or too shaded to support larger predators. They don’t like community tank life. Like South American Apistogramma dwarf cichlids, in the wild, they like submerged leaf litter and water only a few centimetres deep. Their native streams are very different from Amazonian ones though. A West African brook running through deep forests for great distances doesn’t get warmed by the sun. Most Aphyosemion like unheated tanks in the 18-22C range. Some will breed as low as 16C.
This is good, as they’re solitary creatures, best kept in single-species 3 to 10 gallon aquaria. Killiekeepers never have one tank. Still, an unheated five gallon tank with a sponge filter, a tight lid (they are remarkable jumpers!) and room lighting is an easy thing to find place for. I have my killies on a rack with the tanks end out – three feet of rack will hold four tanks with room to spare.
I like to keep a pair per tank, with 20 percent water changes every two weeks. Male killies can be like “Betta-lite” – they don’t like each other. In a larger tank, groups of four or more males get along fine, constantly displaying their fins at each other. Two males in a small tank will rapidly trim themselves down to one.
The fascination
Killiekeepers are very loyal to their pastime. These fish are more than nice to look at – they’re absorbing. If you don’t breed them, they can’t be replaced at the store. Killies can only be consistently gotten from killiekeepers. The fish-trade avoids these fish, as while a Barb may lay three thousand eggs at a shot, with all the fry easy to raise together in uniform batches, a healthy, well-fed killie pair will on average produce one to five eggs per day. Raising such small batches isn’t profitable, although it’s great fun.
I breed killies using acrylic yarn mops. Eggs can be picked off with wet fingers (only infertile ones burst) and put into separate containers for their ten to twenty one day (depending on the species) incubation. The eggs are perfectly transparent – a bonus for anyone who likes to watch embryonic development. They’re great for school biology classes. When they hatch, I use the true fish breeders wonder device, a turkey-baster, to drop the fry into a grow out tank. It’s that easy.
It’s also strangely social. Freshly picked eggs can be mailed to friends, as long as they get there before they hatch. Even the adults are hardy enough to last surprisingly long period in the mail. Killiekeepers form communities – everyone wants your rare fish, and you want theirs. People start out planning to sell pairs and end up trading or giving them away. There’s no area of the hobby where the “what goes around, comes around” cliché is truer.
I belong to Killi-Quebec. We meet four times per year, in various members’ houses across a distance of six hours by car. And because killie eggs can be bought through the American Killifish Association (serving our continent), from Europe and Asia or through Aquabid, the fact that I live in Montreal gives me no advantage for getting intriguing fish in comparison to friends living in villages along the Maine border, or in milltowns hours from a major airport. Killiekeeping is a hobby tailormade for Canada and its distances.
So you want more info?
So if this stage of the killie conspiracy has worked – you’re curious. For pictures of killies, and information on their ecology and keeping, check out the following sites:
http://www.killifish.f9.co.uk/Killifish/Killifish%20Website/Index.htm
http://www.aka.org (http://www.aka.org/)