Malta Aquarist Society

The following is a sort of journal, which I would like to keep updated to show the development of fry and how it's been done (p.s. what I do, might not be 100% correct, so don't take fully my comments and advice as 'The Bible'). Comments are greatly appreciated.

 Day1:

50 eggs of Nothobranchius Rachovii Beira 98 which I got from abroad had reached hatching date some week ago, so I decided to hatch them today. Eggs where eyed-up, which is a good indication that they are due to hatch. A two litre water bottle was opened some two days ago and a tbsp of non-iodized salt was added (I use aquarium salt, to be safe), then it was left in the fishroom to reach the desired temp. Today a 'jablo' (expanded polystrene) container was cleaned and filled with the water mentioned above. Then the peat+eggs in the sachet where emptied in the jablo tub. After some time the peat. gets wet and you can see better what's inside. The eggs, as already stated where eyed-up, the eggs seen as golden dots amongst the peat. One fry has hatched within the first two hours as seen in the pic. The other fry might hatch in the next 48hrs or don't hatch at all (they might need recollection and let to incubate for approx 2 weeks, then re-wetting them ... reason for this will be explained later on). Microworms where added to the water to induce hatching, either due to movement or to increased co2 concentration. Note that the tds reading of the water is noted, so that when water is changed ... water used is approx. of the same reading ... to reduce the chances of fry going through osmotic shock due to the great difference in tds reading. For nothobranchius sp. water must be hard and alkaline, tds reading of water in the tub is 3350, which is too high (salt also increases the tds reading). Salt is important in hatching nothos, so that velvet which is a common disease when raisining nothos is reduced.

 Very interesting Charlon, looks like you've been in killie hobby for quite some time.

Thanks jtheuma, not too long ... months ago, but not more. I've read as much info as possible about the subject for months, and I'm still reading whatever I find on the subject. It's just addictive like you once told me

Well, this was supposed to be a daily walk-through about some eggs I hatched, and the progress of the fry. Due to my time consuming full-time job and my also time consuming, part-time hobby (fish keeping and breeding) I was not able to mantain my daily write-up.

In the meantime other eggs where hatched, and others are stored until the incubation time is over, and eggs become "eyed-up".

A rack was built exclusively for killies and the tanks are being assembled slowly till completion. 

The following is a pic of the tanks I'm talking about .. which btw where assembled for me generously by Charles Grima ..

The pics to come are from the first and second hatching respectively .. pics where taken some weeks ago. Update .. colours started to show up now, making things more interesting

Will try to keep you updated with more pics, if I'm not too busy changing their water (every other day) or the other 16 aquariums ranging from this small to 6ft  

Well Done Charlon.

I know quite well how much you're busy with the water changes, let alone your daily work routine. Hope that you'll keep us updated, like you did today, with interesting pictures & hopefully some colourful fish, in the near future. Well done once again friend.

 Yes I like breeding killies very much to see their spawning behaviour, but when the males start to colour up, it's just like winning a lottery for me! Keep it up charlon, you've got quite some fry there! keep this interesting thread updated!

 Thanks for the nice comments .. will try to keep you updated with some pics.

nice set up my friend very neet and well organised cant wait to start my fishroom in a year or two time hehe

 Yes Charlon seems to be organised, with labelling the tanks. When breeding especially killies ( because of scientific and codes), one has to take care of not mixing fish because females of different species can resemble each other and you'll end up mixing them. You have to date when the eggs are going to hatch and so on. Maybe Charlon can give us his method of doing it.

Hi Jtheuma, thanks for the complients.

On each tank as you have pointed out, there are two labels. Label one represents the species + the location code and the hatching date.

Label two, which is of upmost importance to me is the tds reading of the water in the tank. With killie keeping, the two factors I care about more are temp. and this tds reading. For those which are not familiar with tds .. this means Total Dissolved Solids, meaning the dissolved minerals found in the water. The higher the tds reading, the harder or impure the water is. This is very important to keep in the range required by the species for better growth and less stress on the fish. When doing a water change, the water changed should be approximately of the same reading as the water in the tank, so that the fish do not go through, what is called, an osmotic shock.

Also the tds range for Aphyosemion is different from that of Nothobranchius, and therefore this must be noted. Eg: I'm currently reading a tds of 500ppm (parts per million) in my notho tanks, which on the other hand try to use a 100-150ppm for the SAA killies.

The reading is very simple read by a tds electronic meter.

In the future label three will find a place on the front glass of the tanks, including the parents from which the fry come from, but for now I have'nt got the need for it, since the fry I have where either bougth as eggs, or collected personally from a single pair I have, eg: Gardneri .

 

And what do you do when the tds reading is not the desired one?

I add tap water (hard) or ro water (soft) depending on what values I need. 

The following are some pics taken today, so that one can see the development of the fry. The colouring up of the males, mentioned above, can now clearly be seen. The camera is not that good .. therefore sry 4 d bad quality.

Gardneri fry:

Rachovii fry:

Well Done Charlon & thanks for sharing the pictures with us.

Really nice males! Fundulopanchax gardneri and Nothobranchius rachovii! What's the ratio of males to females?