Re: Brazil, Indiana

["Scott Davis" <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

Hey Chad!

Welcome to the world of killies! You are pretty close to the middle of
Indiana (I'm sure I wasn't the only one to wonder where the heck is Brazil -
Indiana - and go look it up on mapquest). There are some pretty darn good
aquarists in the Terre Haute area. Also around the Indianapolis-Anderson
area are some very good killie people in the Exclusively Killies affiliate.
If you go to the www.aka.org site and link to the affiliate page and then go
to that group you will find that ...

Exclusively Killies meets on the first Sunday of the month, except major
Holidays, in members homes at 2:00 pm. A killie auction always follows the
meeting. There are killifish, plants, live foods and years of experience and
information available at our meetings. We welcome visitors and anybody
interested in Killifish.


Our next ExK meeting location can be obtained by calling: Garry Wiley at
(317)640-9641 or you may send E-Mail to wiley at iquest_net

I left out the stuff about their 1999 Hoosier Hospitality weekend. ;)

You've got a meeting coming up in just a couple of weeks. The Wileys can be
a lot of help to you and steer you towards a lot of other very capable
killie people.

(They may already have by now.)

In the meantime, if you haven't covered your lineatus, please do so
immediately. They are very accomplished jumpers and will climb out
surprisingly small spaces.

As the summer heats up a lot of the killies (from rain forest waters which
are relatively cool for the tropics) suffer, eat more food but lay fewer
eggs because they are just keeping up with their increased metabolism.

The lineatus, on the other hand, really do best when their water gets into
the high 70s and low 80s F. They have even been used for mosquito control in
some of India's rice paddies - and that water can get warm!

They will eat more, but they will lay lots of large eggs (about 2 mm in
diameter). Their fry will hatch in about two weeks (you can pick the eggs -
see the AKA site alluded to above for all sorts of suggestions and also
check the archives for this list). The fry can take freshly hatched baby
brine shrimp from the get go.

For info on their origin, go to http://nzka.killi.net/ . Andrew Broome has
quite an account of the origin of the strain which is now you golden wonder
lineatus. (Just in case you wondered.)

Your order of the gardneri albino wasn't such a bad move either. If you have
to keep them in the same tank as the lineatus, assuming the gardneri are not
bite size, they will probably get along ok. They very likely will not cross
(a danger all too common with killies). They occupy different parts of the
tank - in fact the gardneri will clean up any flake food that the lineatus
knock down but will not follow to the bottom of the tank. Their eggs are
about half the size of the lineatus and will look quite different.

A caution with their eggs: several of us have almost thrown out gardneri
albino eggs picked and left in a flat bottomed container of shaded, shallow
water for a couple of days. We didn't see dark embryos developing and
mistakenly assumed that the eggs were infertile. Of course the albinos just
show differently. (Usually white eggs mean they are infertile or dead and
about to make a contagious mess with fungus.)

Gardneri have been called the guppies of the killies with good reason. If
you can find room for them in their own tank and can dump a bunch of plants
in with them, you will (if fairly faithfully feeding and water changing)
begin to see a number of little gardneri growing up with the parents. The
more tank space and/or the more plants and/or the more food = more fry.

You have selected two of the killies which most of us would be very likely
to recommend to a newby. That doesn't mean that others of us don't really
like them too. I still have strains of both around after 30 years in the
hobby. (A neat trick since I'm only 23.)

At any rate, welcome to the killie hobby. Maybe in August, grab some of
those Hoosiers and ramble up I-74 to the CAFE auction in Urbana. There will
be lots of neat aquarists there, a surprising number of killies and plants
for sale and more killinuts to meet.

All the best!

Scott

> If you recognize this name I'm hoping you live close by.  I bought my
first Killifish, Aplocheilus lineatus Gold Male,  little over a month ago at
a LFS.  I fell in love with him. (has a ton of personality)  Now I want to
try my had at breeding Killifish.  This will be my first attempt at raising
anything other than grass.  ;-P  I'm hoping someone close by will take me
under their wing so I do this right.  I have already made my first mistake
and during a moment of brainless excitement ordered some FP G Albino's.
They will arrive on Thursday if all goes well.  Thanks in advance to all who
read this, even if you don't live nearby.  <wink>
>
> --- Chad Mishler
> --- blackrock21 at earthlink_net
>
>
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