Questions that should have been sent to the forum

**timebomb** · 16th Nov 2003, 00:35

Hi, folks,

Someone asked me several questions about killies through private email again. From now on, I will forward all such questions directly to the forum.

Good evening Mr Loh, I have some questions which i would like to ask. For my Fundulopanchax, i followed the way as how you breed lyretails. I cant find any acrylic yarn for my spawning mops, so i subsituted the material using a nylon type rope. The Fundulopanchax are active, with the male chasing the female every now and then. Today is the second day i left them together, so i did a check for any discovery of eggs but sadly i cannot find any of them so far. I was wondering if the material of my spawning mop is not suitable for them or if i was too anxious as they have not breed yet.

About the second question, its about the Nothobranchius. I tried to feed them with de-frozen bloodworms, but they do not seems to be interested in the bloodworms. I tried using live worms, but i am also not sure if they had eaten them as the worms died quite fast. I hope you can give me some advise on what food would be more suitable for them. I also notice that the male Nothobranchius is inside the spawning bowl but not the other 2 females. I hope this is normal.

Sorry to take up so much of your time by reading my questions Mr Loh, and i hope my english is readable.

Your English is very good and I'm delighted you made the effort to write well.

I'm not sure if the nylon rope you are using is the reason your Fundulopanchax are not laying eggs as I've never used anything other than acrylic yarn before. But I suspect the nylon shouldn't be a problem. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why only acrylic yarns are recommended for spawning mops.

It could be your fish aren't settled down. If the female looks like she's highly stressed from the male's sexual harrassment, I would suggest you separate the fish for a few days. When you put them together again, it would be better if you introduce the male to the female. In other words, put the male into the tank holding the female and not the other way round. This is so the female would be the host and the male the guest. Hosts are already comfortable in their own homes whereas guests take some time to settle down so if there's any bullying, it would be host bullying guest. I hope I explained that point clearly.

As for your Nothobranchius, it could be the same reason too. Fish take time to settle down in a new environment. It's quite normal if they don't feed for the first few days. When I get new killies, I usually put them into a very established tank and placed the tank in a dark corner. I won't peep into their tank and I throw in only minimal food to keep them alive.

Some Nothos when they are nervous like to hide in the breeding bowl. That's quite normal too. The space inside your bowl is probably too small to accomodate all 3 killies comfortably so it's natural the females are hanging around outside.

I'm not sure what you mean by the live worms dying quite fast as that's quite unusual. Live worms when uneaten can sometimes live for several days in the tank. I would suggest you look under the breeding bowl. But if your fish aren't eating live tubifex, maybe you should try feeding them with live bloodworms. Unlike tubifex which forms into clumps, bloodworms wriggle a lot and the fish usually can't resist this wriggling action.

Don't worry too much about the fish not eating and starving to death. Fish rarely die from starvation but more often than not, they die from over-feeding.

Try to make your tank more cosy for them. Adding some aquatic plants would be good.

Loh K L

**Heather** · 16th Nov 2003, 11:38

Hope it's okay if I post a response and offer.

If anyone has trouble finding acrylic yarn, let me know. I have an unlimited supply.

I was told that the reason acrylic yarn is used and recommended was because of the time it spent underwater. Maybe the others deteriorate more quickly, I'm not sure.

Actually, here is an excerpt from www.aka.org:

The most popular method of breeding plant spawners is the use of mops constructed from nylon or 100% acrylic yarn. The fish deposit their eggs on the strands of yarn. Organic yarns, such as wool or cotton, should not be used as they deteriorate in the water. The color of the mop does not seem to be very important, although some killie breeders claim that their fish prefer certain colors. Dark colors, particularly dark green, are often used. In all cases it is necessary to boil the mop before use.

So, I was right after all

Heather

**turaco** · 16th Nov 2003, 21:34

Colour of mop- Dark green is still the prefered choice. I used to use black, it's much more difficult to see eggs on it! Other colours like red & purple look so unnatural. I guess is more of human preference than the fish. As for nylon rope, eggs might not stick on it. Acrylic yarn can also act as a breeding ground for the good bacteria to keep water clean.

Gan.

**RonWill** · 17th Nov 2003, 01:55

Originally Posted by Heather

If anyone has trouble finding acrylic yarn, let me know. I have an unlimited supply.

Unlimited supply? Are you in the knit-wear industry? :wink:

Heather, thanks for the offer to help source for the yarn but I followed Kwek Leong's lead and found a local shop which sells 'em quite affordably.

I've been buying a fair bit of the yarn, and busy making more spawning mops, that I think the shop is sold out on dark green!

But until Kwek Leong gives me the green light, I won't post the name and address of the shop here (free advertisment??). So those who're interested will have to message or email me.

Anyway, a combined-color mop with dark green, light green, dark brown, light brown and black... makes one cool mop!

**Heather** · 17th Nov 2003, 07:16

Unlimited supply? Are you in the knit-wear industry?

Actually, I went through a phase where I thought I could crochet so I bought tons of yarn. It was the fall so I bought tons of dark green yarn and I have nothing to do with it now.

If I had to buy it, it would cost approximately $2 US for 8 oz. How much does it cost there?

Hmmm...wonder if anyone would like to trade fish for yarn

?

**timebomb** · 17th Nov 2003, 17:27

Originally Posted by Heather

Hmmm...wonder if anyone would like to trade fish for yarn

?

You'll have to spin quite a good yarn before anyone would agree to a trade like that

Heather, we buy yarn by the skein. Each skein is 45 gm and costs about Sing $1.60. That's about 1 US dollar. The reason Ronnie couldn't find the dark green ones anymore is because I've already got the market cornered.

I buy in bundles of 5 skeins. Take a look:

Loh K L