Nothobranchius Kafuensis

[Dan_G_Calgary]

last male succumbed to old age. His 2 remaining girlfriends put in the 'lonely hearts club retirement tank' to live out the remainder of their days.

Last bag of eggs stored away. Feb. hatching on those most likely.

Got a couple bags that I will hatch when i get back from Phoenix in Jan.

[Ursus sapien]

looking up the killies you guys talk about has become a secondary hobby for me. What an amazing group of fish!

[pyro]

They are an amazing group of fishes with a reputation for being hard to keep and breed. This couldn't be further from the truth. Their colours are amazing and because they are small, they don't require large tanks.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

First bag of eggs wetted. (9/21) no fry.

grrr.

Thinking I am storing them in too cool of a location. will dry and rewet in a month. Maybe put them upstairs somewhere warm....

[Dan_G_Calgary]

gave it a couple of extra days just to see if anything would pop out. Nothing.
So added the 10/1 bag to this as well.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

wet the 10/13 bag last night.

LOTS of fry! they're everywhere! Looking really healthy too.

5.5 months incubation? interesting.

[CACAdmin]

Congrats! :thumbup:

[GaryofMontreal]

Nice! That's a good Notho, and not an easy one!

[Dan_G_Calgary]

Had a crash in that group that I hatched, and only about 5 survived. Looks like they are all males too. grrr...

Hatched an Oct 10 bag this morning. This is the second wetting for this bag as I tried them in Feb and got nothing, so rebagged and tried today... Lots!

Also wet a Dec 10 bag and only one fry hatched... 5 months too soon? It was the last bag I collected from the parents though, so they may have slowed down on spawning by then. Will rebag it and try in a couple months just the same.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

hey Vince! Can you count these for me? :laugh:

You'll be spotting them hopefully when you come over next weekend!

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/N%20Kafuensis%20fry%205%2028/Various039.jpg

[vince0]

I count at least 10 lol

[Dan_G_Calgary]

bad pic of one of the 7 that survived my first hatch out. The fish hiding underneath is a Kryptolebias marmoratus

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/random%20killies/Various025.jpg

[Dan_G_Calgary]

Well, time to add to my list of 'stupid things I have done lately'.

Had a fantastic spawn of these growing up in a breeders net. Figured it was time to move them, so set up a brand new 10 gallon tank. Moved a sponge filter from another tank. Added heat to avoid the Calgary wipes...

and they cratered. Heater seems to have failed. The sponge filter wasn't keeping up and I might have overfed them bbs, and I don't think I added any salt....

And to add injury to insult, I figured out that they are also a CAOAC target killie... Well, this week they are... :laugh:

[CACAdmin]

Such beauties. Sorry to hear you lost them. Don't beat yourself up over it. These things happen. There are so many variables involved, it's hard to pinpoint where things went wrong. All I can say is don't let this discourage you. Next time, hopefully, you'll get it right.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

So 5 survived from the second batch, and 5 from the first. the first 5 were all males.

Our BAP chair says he will accept 5 from difficult species. This is a class C in our club, and a CAOAC target killie, so pretty much accepted as being a challenge.

Vince and I chatted it over on the first group and we came to the conclusion that it just didn't seem right to submit them on BAP when you couldn't reproduce them from the spawn. (just our own personal bias as breeders, not a judgement on anyone else) so I decided I wouldn't submit.

The second group of 5 has 2 females in it though! I saw one of the young males trying to pin her on the bottom for some spawning! haha! So I have recovered from the brink of disaster on these!

I'll be setting a trio up in the next week or so. The prettiest male with the two girls.

[CACAdmin]

Glad to hear this second batch netted a couple of females for you.

[Wingin' It]

I'll be setting a trio up in the next week or so. The prettiest male with the two girls.

Kudos...sounds good! Fingers crossed that they spawn many, many times! ;)

[Dan_G_Calgary]

So, I've been saving all the bags of peat, even after I had put them in water, just in the hopes that I could get a few more fry out of them later.

Today I put them all in water and got 5 more fry. raising them with some betta picta that I stripped too early from the male. Will see how it all goes. At least it's another shot at them just in case something happens to the group I have.

[CACAdmin]

That's cool that you can try again with the peat and be successful.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

That's not at all uncommon. I've wet bags of peat too early in the past, redried them, try 2-3 months later and get a huge hatch from them. They know when they're ready to come out. :cool:

I will typically save them and rewet a couple times, with 1-3 month rest times, before I give up on them.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

So an update on these guys, and I'm stoked about this:

Several weeks back, I set the prettiest male up with 2 females, and a coffee mug (its what I have been using as peat holders. Old coffee mugs work great!) with peat in it.

Tonight I pulled the peat and checked it for eggs and success! pics below! I found 3 eggs in this pic there might be more. Also posted a few pics of proud papa.

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/random%20killies/morevarious030.jpg

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/random%20killies/morevarious033.jpg

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/random%20killies/morevarious036.jpg

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/random%20killies/morevarious038.jpg

[silvak]

He is pretty! And eggs are always exciting. What's the plan to get these things hatched?

[Dan_G_Calgary]

They have ~ 6 months of incubation. So, put them away for 6 months, then hatch them! :laugh:

[CACAdmin]

Congrats on the eggs... I guess we'll have to be patient with a 6 mo. incubations period. You'll have to be sure to have lots of other projects on the go so that you don't get imapatient waiting for these.:wink:

[silvak]

Him? What about me? I was really excited about these.........why? I have no idea, but I was.

6 whole months to wait, whatever will we do?

[vince0]

these annuals are good for people with lots of tanks. Six months is a breeze when you have 40+ tanks to look at.

Nice pics Dan! Can't wait to see if you get both sexes out of this batch. I wish you the best of luck man!

[Dan_G_Calgary]

Thanks Vince. Considering that I originally bought these back when Bill Bishop gave his presentation, and how much I struggled with getting a viable spawn out of the many bags of eggs I collected, I now clearly understand why this is a CAOAC target killie. They're not easy.

Currently I have 10 (5 survived from 2 different bags of eggs). Of those 10, 8 are male, so I only have the 2 females.

But I think what excited me the most (and this is sad really! haha!) is that i could SEE the eggs! I haven't been able to see Notho eggs since I got back in to killies. I thought it was my eyes fading, but between a stronger reading glass (2.0) and getting more accustomed on what to look for, that skill seems to be coming back a bit. That made me very happy.

These are an amazingly pretty little killie, so I'm quite pleased to be moving to the next generation on these, and have them available for folks in our area.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

Him? What about me? I was really excited about these.........why? I have no idea, but I was.

6 whole months to wait, whatever will we do?


Well, you could buy a bag of eggs from me, and take them out every month to check on their progress! haha!

honestly, one of the things that I find most fascinating about killies is watching the eggs develop.

All kidding aside though, unless you are familiar with hatching/raising killies, this is not a good one to start on. Notho. guentheri or Simpsonichthys santanae are equally beautiful and more forgiving.

[Dan_G_Calgary]

Sorry to keep posting on this, but I just found how to do something on photobucket.

This is for folks that were having a hard time finding the eggs in that pictures

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/random%20killies/morevarious030-1.jpg

[GaryofMontreal]

If arrows like that developed naturally (!) I'd probably keep Nothos again. I can never find the eggs without giant arrows like that.

[CACAdmin]

Him? What about me? I was really excited about these.........why? I have no idea, but I was.

6 whole months to wait, whatever will we do?
Do you think you'll survive? We'll just have to find lots of other things to distract you with. :spinny:

[silvak]

I would try them myself if they had giant purple arrows pointing to the eggs, if only to see it myself. Even if I couldn't stand the wait to see them hatch.

Do you think you'll survive? We'll just have to find lots of other things to distract you with. :spinny:

I think I will. Distraction? Where? *wanders off aimlessly*

[Dan_G_Calgary]

If arrows like that developed naturally (!) I'd probably keep Nothos again. I can never find the eggs without giant arrows like that.

I know what you mean Gary. Funny story to go with this. When I was picking which pictures I would post here, I noticed another egg in a picture that had come off the peat. The peat was spread out on a margarine container lid, which I had set down after moving the rest of the peat into a baggie. I went back and looked at the lid and that one egg was still there! haha! So I transferred it to the baggie with the rest. just for fun, I'll post that pic later, you folks can play 'egg hunt' and find the egg that I had rescued!

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae184/Grimblyd/random%20killies/morevarious029.jpg