Re: [Killietalk] What species?

["unclescott" <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

Welcome to killies Svein!

Aplocheilus lineatus is a widely distributed killie from India. They eat
most anything they can fit in their mouths. They will sometimes even take
vegetable material which they don't digest well.

Yours is one of the wild strains. As nice as the "golden wonder" color sport
is, many of use are back to looking for the wild ones again. Yours would be
a yellow or gold form as opposed to a form with some red. The females in the
wild morphs have those distinctive side bars - which are also what the
juveniles wear.

Obviously surface fish, they don't follow food to the tank bottom unless it
is a really active live food. They lay lots of relatively large eggs and
their fry can start on newly hatched brine shrimp. They are best reproduced
by leaving and removing spawning mops or removing the adult fishes from a
tank after a couple of weeks.

They are even found in rice paddies, so they (and their genus) appreciate
temperatures which are higher those recommended for most killifish. Not
surprisingly they have been used for mosquito control.

25-27 degrees C. would be fine. They will tolerate somewhat higher and lower
temperatures.

Sometimes it seems like the most frequent cause of death is terminal
dehydration. Cover their tanks very carefully. If a heater is used which is
hung on the side of the tank, something fireproof (filter floss?) should be
stuffed between it and the tank cover.

A water sprite top cover and and underwater heater (such as the Ebo-Jager)
might serve them best. A corner or sponge filter is better than a power
filter.

They have a pretty good reputation as a community fish if companions are of
a similar size (not bite sized). However ours were left with some bivittatum
and Corydorus in a 60 L tank for eight days this summer while we were on
vacation. The bivs were fine, but the Corys had been treated badly.

Stressful conditions, hunger in this case, high temperatures, bullies or bad
water conditions in others, will cause behaviors which we usually don't see
in a species.

They are an old favorite. Veteran killie people who no
longer keep them, sometime wonder why they ever let them go.

Good luck and all the best!

Scott




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