GARDNERI KILLIFISH

GENERAL INFORMATION

DESCRIPTION

Males are multi coloured and quite spectacular. Females look like tadpoles.

SIZE

About 5 cm.

INTERESTING FACTS

Gardneri are a desert fish. Their eggs can survive out of the water for an extended period of time. When the rains come, the eggs hatch.

In their native country of Zambia, Gardneri killifish have been known to live out their entire lives in a puddle made from an elephant's footprint.

APPEAL

Killifish are beautiful little creatures. They are small, easy to accommodate and fairly easy to breed.

OBSERVATIONS ON CAPTIVE SPECIMENS

SUITABILITY

You should have had some experience keeping other tropical fish before you try Killifish.

AQUARIUM CONDITIONS

Does not need much room - has been known to live out it's entire life in an elephant's footprint. Dislikes bright light and strong current. Prefers soft water. 18C - 25C temperature range. Should have some cover.

AQUARIUM BEHAVIOR

Males are aggressive and tend to fight. They can injure each other and I have had adult males killed by other males. When they are in groups they don't seem to harm each other as seriously. Males also tend to harass females. These fish are reasonably extroverted. They swim around and court one another, rarely hiding away. They seem to appreciate cover, but don't use it often. They move throughout the water column.

FEEDING HABITS

These fish can be trained to take flake foods but they do much better on frozen and live foods. Mine are principally fed on blood worm and finely minced beef heart. I have seen other fish which mainly get live food and they tend to get much larger and have more colour. Flake fed fish don't seem to grow. Food is taken from the surface, mid water and the substrate.

FISH KEEPING RECOMMENDATIONS

GAR Killifish are a small and fairly sensitive fish. They are a good first killifish but are probably not suitable for the beginner due to their aquarium requirements and their aggressive nature. Males should be separated or maintained in groups to prevent bullying. If you keep females with the males, there should be more females than males so that females will take turns in being harassed.





OUR FISH

DETAILS OF SPECIMENS WE HAVE KEPT

We started with two pairs ended up with 30 fish.

AQUARIUM DETAILS

They were all in a 60 cm community aquarium. It was heated to 25C and has a peat substrate. Water was soft.

BREEDING

TANK SETUP

Bare 60 cm tank, 25C, dark, box filter containing filter wool and peat to soften the water. One spawning mop placed on the bottom of the tank.

BREEDING STOCK

Initially I placed two adult males and two adult females into this tank however I had to remove one of the males due to fighting. He died a short time later. I fed the fish lots of frozen blood worm. The male constantly displayed to the females.

EGG SEPARATION

On the second day I removed the spawning mop and found it to be covered in small round eggs. Took some washed peat and dipped it in water. I then squeezed it until it was almost dry and placed it into a plastic aquarium bag. I removed the eggs from the mop with damp fingers and placed them into the bag of damp peat. I repeated this for several more days and then sealed the bag, wrapped it in newspaper and left it on top of a tank to stay warm.

HATCHING FRY

Three weeks later the eggs were ready to put to water. I removed the adults from the spawning tank (who had laid eggs all over the place but I had no where to put them). I dropped all the peat and eggs into the spawning tank where it settled to the bottom. The next day there were small fry swimming about.

RAISING FRY

The fry were fed on a culture of micro worms and vinegar eels until they were large enough to take finely minced beef heart. All the eggs from the peat hatched almost immediately but subsequently all the other eggs in the spawning tank hatched. I isolated the larger fish into mesh covered boxes suspended in the water to prevent them from eating the smaller fish. All the fish are now isolated in the mesh box and the tank is being used to spawn other fish. After one month the young males developed colour and started to fight. After three months the fish started trying to breed.

USEFUL LINKS

Age of aquariums - killifish

User posted comments and an image

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