Chromaphyosemion bitaeniatum pics

[Happy Camper]

Just wanted to share 2 pics of my C. bitaeniatum, the pics are a bit blurry, sorry.

[dageti]

Total stunners.
And loving the thick vegetation. Nice to see the bright orange things against the sea of green. 'Lagos', am I correct? Remind me of mine...now I have only 2 females left.

Keep up the great work.

Francesco

[AquaManCanada]

Very nice Happy Camper. Tank looks great as well.

[timebomb]

I'm glad you showed us the pictures of your fish, Cameron. Because it so happens I have the same fish but I wasn't sure of its identity. Someone gave me several pairs but he did not know the name. Here's a picture I took just the other day:



Loh K L

[RonWill]

Might be a BIT Lagos but killies can be similar looking or have vast color/pattern variations at different stages of maturity.

I no longer have these but the following link is supposedly a Lagos from 2003.
http://www.angelfire.com/retro/clock...BIV_Lagos.html

Cameron, if you're keeping just one species of killie in that tank, it doesn't matter what it is... just enjoy the fish!

[AquaManCanada]

Wow Loh K L that male is quite impressive. The females remind me alot of female cherry barbs.

[Happy Camper]

Hi everyone, thanks for the nice comments.

This is my favourite Killi at the moment, it is a truly *beautiful* fish. I've had them for about 6 months now in a long term breeding setup, 10 gallon tank with loads of moss and some floating Najas. So far there are a few fry that have made it, 2 females and a male. These fish are not so prolific and I'm wondering if I should move them into a short term setup in order to get more eggs from them? Any advice on this?

Loh K L, I know for sure they are C. bitaeniatum but I'm not sure of their precise locality, I still have contact with the chap I got them from so I will enquire if he knows and I'll let you know. Loh K L they sure do look very similar to the pics you posted (beautiful BTW) but mine seem to have a deeper red, but otherwise almost 100% similar.

Ronnie, they are in a tank by themselves, and even though there is alot of vegetation and hiding places they are still very shy. The tank has a built in light in the hood and I was wondering if the light may be too bright for them, hence their shyness? Or is it because there are no dither fish? How can I make them a bit more relaxed? I feed them Mozzie Larvae and BBS mostly with a pinch of Tetra Pro flakes once a week or so. There is a bubble filter in the tank for filtration. Any ideas?

Kind regards
Cameron

[timebomb]

I leave them to breed naturally and regularly, fry appears. Last week, however, I decided to put in a spawning mop. The next day, I took out the mop and saw many eggs. I wanted to incubate the eggs by leaving them in a container with moss and a shrimp in attendance. So I scooped out some water from the tank with the container and dumped in a small handful of moss.

I was picking the eggs from the mop and transferring them to the moss in the container when out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. What the heck, I thought!! What could that be? I moved the moss aside and to my amazement, there was a fry. Hey, I thought - my Killifish egg just broke the world record - it has hatched in an incredibly short time

But seriously, the fry must have been hiding among the moss when I picked it up with my fingers.

You should be getting better results, Cameron. What with the live foods you're using - hey, I wish I can feed them with mosquito larvae but over here, my neighbours will call the police and they will throw the book at me if they find me breeding mozzies

Loh K L

[timebomb]

Wow Loh K L that male is quite impressive.

He is, isn't he? The fish is an easy subject for photo-shoots. His behaviour is such he stays still most of the time. Here's a face shot:



Loh K L

[Happy Camper]

No chewing gum or Mozzie breeding in Singapore :P

They go *bonkers* for mozzies, you can safely breed them without any getting out. But you need to be quick I fill a small container of water and leave it outside for a day or 2 or 3. If you look closely at the surface of the water you will notice tiny black 'rafts'. These are Mozzie eggs, or rather 1000's of eggs in a pod. Once you have 2 or 3 of these rafts floating on top you have about 2-3 days to harvest mozzie larvae before they develop into flying blood sucking vampires! After you notice the rafts you can cover the container with a sheet of glass so that if any do reach the flying stage they wont be able to get out ! But rather not if it gets you into trouble

You're right, I should be getting much better results, I wonder what I'm doing wrong? Perhaps it's a water quality issue? The high temps are probably adding to the problem too.

Your fish is beautiful by the way, spectacular colour on that male, wow.