Hi, Angel,
Welcome to killies.com forum.
It's good that you are doing some research on your own before asking questions. Here in this forum, we don't have all the answers but we try to help each other. I'm also glad you signed off your post with a real name. Angel is such a lovely name. It definitely sounds a lot better than SilverStallion
I'm not sure what's plural for rachovii but I think it should be rachovii's. Take note that rachovii is spelled without an "n". As far as I know, there's no evidence to suggest that female rachovii's have shorter life spans than the males. In fact, I'm inclined to think it's the other way round.
Your rachovii's are not laying eggs inside the breeding bowl probably because they don't even know it's there. Or rather, they don't know there's a bed of peat inside the bowl where it will be more comfortable for them. You have to give them time. What are you using for a breeding bowl? Is the water level in your tank high enough? Do you have gravel in the tank? The more details you provide, the better we will be able to answer your questions.
I suppose when you wrote "orange", you are referring to the orange Aphyosmenion australes aka Lyretails. It's important to get the names right or we won't know what fish you are talking about. The australes are known to live for several years but I think no one here can vouch for this as none of us has been keeping the fish for so long. Life spans of fish depend a lot on their living conditions too. If conditions are poor, some can't even last a few days At 3 months old, the australes are sexually matured enough to lay eggs.
Neither the rachovii's nor australes need special water conditions to keep them alive. But obviously, like almost all other fish, they won't like chemicals such as chlorine. It's never wise to change too much water at one go, if that's what you want to know.
Whether females are present or not, male killies will flare at each other. But I suppose if females are present, they will flare even more. Certain male killies like the Notho guentheri's will indulge in homosexual behaviour when there are no females around. A stronger male will attempt to mate with a weaker male. Weaker males generally don't show much colour so they can look like females sometimes. In a way, they are like transvestites, males who like to dress as females.
As for photographing fishes, it's always difficult with fish that move around all the time. I should know. I've spent countless hours trying to take good pictures of my killies. I use a digital camera, a Nikkon Coolpix 4500. It's almost impossible to take good pictures if the fish are in a big tank so I have a small tank which I use just for taking pictures. I paint the tank black on all sides except the front. When I want to take pictures, I put in a small Moss Wall to act as a background. I also use a overhead reading light positioned just above the tank. Usually, I have to take about 200 pictures to get a few good ones. Having a few plants in the tank would make the picture look much better. I usually use Hornwort.
Having said all that, I like to say that one should not be too concerned about the fish's life span. Ever so often, I hear people asking about the life span of killies. It's like if their life spans are short, people won't want to keep them anymore.
How long a living organism lives is relative. Certain species of insects live only for a few days. A certain species of Mayfly lives for only one day while some tortoises can live for more than 2 hundred years. Humans have an average life span of about 65 years. So is our life span short or long? Compared to an ant, we seem to live forever but when compared to the tortoise, our life spans would seem short.
If you can breed them, a trio of killies will produce so many offspring you will find you can't handle all of them. So what if their life spans are relatively short?
Loh K L
Bookmarks