This adventure was what got me hooked on killifish 

 

More to come

Golden Wonder Killifish (Apolcheilus lineatus)

This is a top dwelling fish - and can get very large for a killifish - This is one of the larger Killifish reaching a mature size of 4 inches (aparently ive never seen their true size). The males of this species are brightly colored, with the body having a yellow to blue coloration. The female of this species are more subdued in color and form.

this is a non annual killifish - and in my experience the easiest of the killifish I own to breed - Beginners should begin here - I say this as they are not fussy eaters - and they have the biggest hardiest eggs.

I have had Golden Panchax the longest of all my killis - I want to say a year or maybe even longer.

I want to share my adventure with you as well its what got me hooked - Killifish are amazing - but there are less and less breeders in New Zealand - without future breeders we will lose these species in New Zealand.

 

My experience so far has been many ups and many downs - these fish when conditioned can lay eggs like there is no tomorrow - however they also very easily get internal parasites such as worms - this has all been a massive learning curve for me as I have never had to deal with these things before with my betta breeding - they have their own challenges - trust me

I originally bought my pair from Rodney - quickly conditioned them by separating them - slapped them back together

First spawn I used Java Moss - this was relativley easy - put the moss in and either remove and replace it often or push my luck and leave the moss in for 10 maybe 12 days max. - i admit the first time I bred these fish I was Looking everyday for eggs and could not find them - Lesson number one- Killifish when freshly laid are invisible in the water -

I only noticed when I saw a fry on the top of my tank (now im short - my killi tank is dumbly placed at the top of a shelf - I have to climb a ladder to see the top so lets say I dont do it too often) - Lesson number 2 - Killifish babies need live food - Lucky for me being a betta breeder I had this on hand not hatched baby brine shrimp but Microworms-

now if you know me at all you will know I am a SUCKER for anything baby... I couldnt leave the fry in the tank to be eaten - so I set up another tank.

A Little Lazy on water changes and possibly not feeding enough - eventually the fry started to colour up - as far as I can remember they appeared to be a fairly even gender divide (however I also was guessing)

So this lot - i had to sell I couldnt maintain this many fry - I still had the parents - so off they went to their new home.

At the same time I took on some golden wonder adults from a fellow breeder who was getting out of the breeding game - so lucky for me I could house them while they were being onsold.

(cheekily) I set them up to spawn - this time I used my UGLY home made spawn mops and collected as many eggs as I could - now I find that the eggs have a better hatch rate when they are left in java and not touched so i try and drop the eggs in some java (partially to keep them off the ground)

With all the fish I pulled heaps and heaps and heaps of eggs for the week I had them.

This time When they hatched is when I noticed that I had internal parasites for the first time - some quick shopping and I was set - off to dosing for worms I went - Lesson Always have Dewormer~~!~!~!!!~~!!- I also had no IDEA how long they had been there

The worms were so bad in my adult female that when the treatments were killing the fish they were ripping her whole tummy out with them -- super clean water and she healed - unfortunatley this was to be the last spawn from her as it appears that she healed all her egg laying parts up and ended up getting extremley egg bound - was sad to see her go in such a horrible way.

Her mate was very lonley so I offered him up to someone who I knew had some already -

alas its not the end of the adventure - the fry which I had aranged a sale of were still there - after ensuring they had no worms they were sold - I held onto about 10 to ensure i still had stock - of which are now breeding age.

Unfortunatley the person whom I sold the recent batch to has said they ended up with mostly males and only about 5 females from 50 - my odds were more favourable and I have even numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

attached and the last photo in the last post are the latest batch of Golden Panchax and the breeding certificate you can get with you have a successfull breeding and are a part of the FNZAS financially.

 

Enjoy - ill post more updates as I go

It is awesome that you are sharing your experiences with everyone and giving people tips on the best way to breed killies

Thanks I'm doing it my down time and I'm having to sort 2k pics on drop box too to post them but I'm getting there... 

update on the golden panchax, have just gone through 2 weeks vigorus worming with both pravi and Levamisole, appear to be worm free again - onwards and upwards to breeding!

 

So I will separate the males and females again, choose a trio or two and off we go again woop woop

gold pan generation 4 are hatching as we speak wooooo