Aphyosemion australe

[turaco]

First of all, like to thank Charles for bringing in the female killies, guess that's what killi keeping is all about- breeding [:]
I'm a newbie to killifish(Most of us in Singapore?). Did a research on the net & learnt a thing or two before aquired them. My questions are:
1.(To Charles)How old are your australe & how many more months left can they live up to?
2.(To timebomb, father of killies[] )How old(months) a female need to be before they are ready to mate?
My females are only 3cm, male 4cm. Read that they can grow to 5cm in length?
Thanks for your valueable answers & let's hope we can bring about more people in Singapore to killi keeping. As for gold or orange, ???

turaco.

[timebomb]

Turaco,

The Aphyosemion australes that you bought from Charles are probably about 4 months old. I'm just making a guess based on their sizes. But what you got are healthy fish (I saw them myself) so chances of breeding them are very high. They should live for 2 to 3 years. Their lifespans would obviously depend very much on the environment you provide them. But over here, because of our higher temperatures, everything gets revved up. The fish grow faster and mature earlier. Egg incubation time also becomes considerably shorter.

The experts on KillieTalk Digest say the fish have to be about a year old before they can produce fertile eggs. But here's the good news. I found several fry in a tank where I have a pair of Aphyosemion australe (chocolate) and the parents were barely 4 months old.

It's easy to get the australes to lay eggs. But getting the eggs to hatch is the tricky part. I haven't got round to doing that yet so I can't tell you much. But I'm working on it and I will put up the pages on my website when I succeed.

Here's a tip for the moderators about writing FAQs: You have to have lots of pictures. Check out "www.killies.com" to see what I mean.

Loh K L

[timebomb]

As for gold or orange, ???
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The Aphyosemion australes come in several colour strains, orange, gold and chocolate. What Charles is selling is the orange strain. I have never seen the other 2 colour strains sold anywhere in our local fish shops. To see how they look like, check out the gallery page on "killies.com"

Loh K L

[loupgarou]

the pair I bought have been chilling with each other at the bottom of the tank...so cute..