A newbie in keeping killies

[kaoz]

Hi I am a greenhorn in the rearing of killies and would like to seek help from masters here to know more about killies and where there is a good selection before embarking on this new journey. Thanks in advance for reading my thread.

[stormhawk]

Chee Fai, welcome to the forum. For starters, there are some shops which stock up on killies but they're few in number. If you don't mind keeping just males then there's several shops out there which you might want to give a visit.

Locally, the shops don't have much variety in terms of species and therefore some of us have banded together to order eggs from overseas sources. Sometimes the eggs don't arrive and sometimes they do arrive, but the developing fry die while in transit. Sometimes the eggs just go bad for no reason. Sometimes you have fish that just won't breed and sometimes you have fry that give you one heck of a hellish time just raising them. But then again, it's all part and parcel of being a killie-keeper. You just gotta have patience and dedication. With a little bit of luck, you might just get lucky and get your fish to spawn for you. Seeing a rare species spawn for you is a priceless moment. :wink:

For beginners, I'd suggest that you start off with keeping Aphyosemion australe. It is, in my humble opinion, the best killie for newbies.

[BeyondGomer]

You might find this thread usefull

http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=603

[timebomb]

Sometimes the eggs don't arrive and sometimes they do arrive, but the developing fry die while in transit. Sometimes the eggs just go bad for no reason. Sometimes you have fish that just won't breed and sometimes you have fry that give you one heck of a hellish time just raising them.

And sometimes, everything works out wonderfully :wink:

We got our eggs today and many of them hatched during transit. Here's a pic of my Aphyosemion elberti 'Nange Eboko' (ELB) fry. 3 of them hatched during the journey from the US of A.



Loh K L

[zmzfam]

Hello Chee Fai,

Perhaps this is a first good read Which killy should I start with.
You can also browse through the main site http://www.killies.com.

After reading the first reference, perhaps you can answer in this thread some of the questions asked, primarily what is the objective of you wanting to rear killies. At the same time, you might want to introduce yourself and your experience in relation to aquaria matters.

Another good read will be the American Killifish Association (AKA) Beginner's Guide. Some of the members here are also AKA members.

As what Jianyang had mentioned, you can find some common species of killies in LFS. However, they tend to be males only as the males are the more colourful whereas the females are drab in colour. Alternatively, some of us order eggs from overseas as normally these species comes with a known collection code.

It is good that you want to find out more about this hobby. Try to read up some of the earlier topics - if you have the time. Finally, welcome to killies.com.

[kaoz]

Thanks to everyone to the warm welcome. I have reared discus for over 3 years and I was greatly attracted by killie fishes about a year ago but was hesitant to start due to space constraints. after revamping my discus setup, it seems I have a larger area to play with now and was greatly interested in pursuit of rearing or even breeding killies which I failed to do a year before. Just to ask where can I get female killies and what is the standard size of a killie tank. Thanks in advance.