Austrolebias nigripinnis 'Villa Soriano' fry!

[nonamethefish]

Ok...based off of the discussion recently I decided to jump the incubation date(which at this time would be a few weeks away). I dunked half the peat and lo and behold many fry were ready to hatch!


Here are two less than an hour old.


One that looks like it emerged incorrectly(headfirst).

Currently at least 4 fry are in the water column and more on the peat. To think this is only the first wetting and half the bag!

[ruyle]

I'd be excited, too! They are beautiful fish.
Congrats, Joseph!

Bill

[nonamethefish]

Bill: Can't wait for them to start growing. I've pulled maybe 10 fry by now.

[Scott_sg]

Congratulations on the fry,
I thought you might be interested in my story from last night. Yesterday I received some 'Ibichisito' eggs from up north. But they were squashed flatter than coyote in a road runner cartoon, the peat was more like card board down to about 2mm thick if that. And it was a very fine peat, almost like velvet or something.
Anyway I thought i have nothing to lose, so I decided to rewet the peat, let it loosen up again and then put it away for another day well packed and hope for the best.
Just then when i went to sort it out, there are about 20 fry swimming around. So they must be very tough, and the eggs were collected 30 September, so that means they incubated in a month if the guy I got them from has his dates right. And a couple of weeks of that would of been in the postal system.
Has anyone else experienced this short incubation also? I am quite stunned and surprised. It also goes to show that you should not assume there is nothing in the peat like i did. And the eggs must be very strong, much stronger than I had even considered as I had pretty much written them off when i saw the peat.

Scott.

[nonamethefish]

Great Story Scott! I know from handling Notho eggs that they are indeed very tough and they can stand up to a lot of pressure. That is a bit extreme though!

I'm curious about the incubation times too...I think I let mine sit for 2 months.

The rest of the eggs wil be dropped into the water tomorrow or next weekend.

[stormhawk]

Scott, the location should be spelt as Ibicuisito. If you received this from the China, then they got the spelling all wrong.

Sometimes even a peat that looks extra flat might yield a few good eggs. You never know for sure.

[Scott_sg]

Thanks for that Jianyang, I normally do my homework on the names when they come in. But I did not get time to double check, as the above was hot off the press, and I had a feeling it was wrong.

I bought them on the spur of the moment, against my better judgement really, but when i was a kid these were the classic type of peat spawning killifish, so it was as much for nostalgia. I also thought they would be a good fish to do my peltier experiments on.

I know they are around Singapore, and I know they can take a wide range of temperatures, but how do they do here when the average tank can reach the high 20's almost constantly, and worse? I think Steffen was asking the same question somewhere. I know some of you are using chillers, but what about under normal Singapore tank temperatures? I would guess they don't live to long. But that is a guess.

But not only am i amazed at the abuse the eggs must of had getting here, but a one month incubation though I have heard of, well I am still stunned, even to the point of wondering if the collection date is right.

Slightly off topic, but I have noticed a lot of messed up spellings not only of the locations but of the scientific names, and a couple of times I have noticed the locations and species all mixed up. And this has been from some of the very well known "top" breeders. So it is good to be double checked on these things. And scolded when need be.

Scott.

[timebomb]

I don't know about you guys but I have already tried the incubation method Steffen Hellner described.

It so happened I had 2 bags of A. nigripinnis eggs that were collected one day before Steffen made his post. The peat was already dry when I read what Steffen wrote but I decided to give it a try anyway.

I couldn't find a place in my house where the temperature is around 18 degrees C so I use my cube tank which has a constant temp of 24 C. I poured the peat into a plastic container and floated it in the tank. I reckoned that the temp in the container should be at around 24 C most of the time. After a few days, I took the container out and placed it on top of my aquarium lights. I've already checked earlier and I knew the temp there to be around 35 C. After several hours, there was a lot of condensation inside the container. I was worried the eggs will be cooked so I transferred the container into my drawer. That was last week.

Steffen's method involves cooling the eggs for a few days after it's collected and then heating it up for a short period. What I did was basically about the same, except that my peat was already pretty dry at the start.

I won't know if this method of incubation will speed up egg-development until 3 weeks later when I wet the eggs. I will let you all know what happens then.

Loh K L

[timebomb]

I know some of you are using chillers, but what about under normal Singapore tank temperatures? I would guess they don't live to long. But that is a guess.

Scott, I was pretty sure my tank which is rigged up to a DIY chiller would keep the A. nigripinnis in good health but now I'm not so sure.

Over the last week or so, I've been losing the fish. They're dying one at a time and I can't find the cause. The survivors seem pretty healthy and they're eating well so it's kind of puzzling.

I also discovered something even more puzzling this morning. I had a tank in my balcony which was sitting on the floor. It's pretty bare except for some mosses floating at the surface. Inside this tank, I thought I have only Notho rachovii's but when I caught out the fish today, I found 3 Simp. fulminantis. What's so puzzling about this, you ask?

Well, it's got nothing to do with me mixing up the fish. Heck, that happens all the time in my tanks What is puzzling is this tank gets direct sunlight. In the afternoons, it gets pretty warm in my balcony so I figure the temp in this tank should be at about 31 to 32 C most of the time. We know from Steffen's post that the S. fulminantis lives in cold waters in its natural habitat. But when I caught out the fish, the thing I can tell you is that they were very healthy. They were big and strong although they were of a later batch than those in my other tank which is much cooler.

So is it really the temperature? Or could it be something else?

Loh K L

[Scott_sg]

KL I think most freshwater fish are quite adaptable, and going on what I know most Killifish should be able to take extremes of temperature, but not rapid changes.
I don't know what is going on with your A. nigripinnis , I know it sounds obvious, but maybe try checking the tank temperature at different times of the day, and night. Perhaps it might be temperature changes or something simple like that.
I am glad you mentioned 32C since I have had some tanks here in the past up at those temperatures, but I thought it must just be mine. Although they had power heads running which made it worse.
I figure though that even at high temperatures, most Killifish will just live shorter lives, which in a way makes sense, since higher temperatures means faster evaporation of the pool, so they have to grow faster and get their business done before they are gone.
The problem is really at the high temperatures here tank conditions can deteriorate very fast, that is my main guess for the dreaded tank die offs that occur here. My guess is that the high temps mean that the water can very quickly become a protozoan or bacterial soup.
But these are all just guesses.
Anyway I hope you can sort out the problem with the A. nigripinnis , I have a very big soft spot for them.
Scott.

[nonamethefish]

Hello guys,

My eggs were probably subject to maybe 60-70 degree temps during shipping...and when they arrived I placed them on a bookshelf...which resulted in the eggs getting heated a bit by the sun. Fearing they would get too hot I moved them in with the Notho eggs which stayed at 75 degrees.

Got at least 12 healthy fry(and 5 fry which look like bellysliders).

Dunked the rest of the bag and we'll see what happens.

[nonamethefish]

This hatch looks like a winner. Quick count yielded 12 fry so I'm guessing I will find maybe 20.

[nonamethefish]

I'm pretty sure I removed over 20 healthy fry.

Feeding BBS and some appear to be growing already.

[ruyle]

Wonderful, Joseph! When they grow out a little, paste up some pics!

Bill

[nonamethefish]

They have not grown much...but here is a photo.



This hatch also produced a number of belly sliders(guessing about 10). Would it be worthwhile to try to raise them?

[Jakobe]

What do you feed the fry with?

[nonamethefish]

Hello Jakobe:

The fry are currently being fed baby brine shrimp. I added in some greenwater but of course you can only guess they are eating that.

Hmm...it seems like I may have hatched them a bit too early or done somethingelse as I got a good number of bellysliders. Fewer than healthy fry but a pretty big number(20ish). Got them in a cup and trying to decide whether to feed em to something or raise them for some kind of experiment.

[nonamethefish]

And another question...what kind of sex ratios do nigripinnis typically give?

[nonamethefish]

The person I got these from reports that he gets an almost perfect 1:1 sex ratio from these guys normally.

They are growing fast and most are now at the size they are able to take the smallest sized brine shrimp from my wastewater tank outside(probably naupli about a week old). Makes it a little easier to keep those bellies full.

At what age do they start to sex out? What are the first signs? The largest appear to be developing spotting and so resemble small females right now.

[stormhawk]

I don't know when they start sexing out exactly since my experience with Austrolebias has been dismal at best but the males will develop a darker body colour and the females will definitely have alot of spotting on the body but will retain the olive-type body colour.

Should you happen to end up with alot more females, that's a good thing actually since in some cases, the ratio tends to be more skewed to males. Sex ratio is dependent on a whole host of factors, of which its hard to pinpoint what causes it actually. Some say its the stocking numbers of fry per tray, some say its due to temperature, and some say its due to water parameters. Whatever it is, as long as you get individuals of both sexes, you're pretty much safe.