'ello all! I have decided that I will own a colony of least killifish in my 5 gallon tank, and would like to try to make this tank quite similar to their native environment. Can anyone on this site who has collected the species report on details of their native waters? Were they heavily planted? Was the substrate littered with leaves, or was the ground visible? What color was the water? Were there a lot of fallen branches?
Anyone have experience on what a least killifish biotope looks like?
Started by
Guest_Joshaeus_*
, Nov 05 2013 03:10 PM
12 replies to this topic
#2
Guest_IsaacSzabo_*
Guest_IsaacSzabo_*
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Posted 05 November 2013 - 03:39 PM
I snorkeled with them quite a bit recently in Florida springs. I always found them within inches of the surface in dense aquatic vegetation. Water was crystal clear, substrate was white sand (sometimes covered in leaves/mulm), and there was lots of lush aquatic vegetation. I also netted them in vegetation in tea-colored water, but for a tank, I would think a Florida spring biotope would look nice.
#4
Michael Wolfe
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- Board of Directors
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- North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage
Posted 05 November 2013 - 04:03 PM
agree with Isaac and confirm all that... we saw them at the Florida convention at the junction of a stream and a swampy area came together... the stream was light colored sand. The swampy area had heavy plant cover in the water and the fish stayed close to teh surface and close to the plants.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
#6
Guest_EricaLyons_*
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Posted 05 November 2013 - 07:58 PM
They readily reproduce in my hydrocotyle leucocephala, utricularia gibba (accidental, don't introduce that if you don't have to), ceratophyllum, ricciocarpus natans etc mixture of floating plants. I often leave my rooted stem plants at the surface, too. They don't care what plant it is, really, as long as there's cover.
In my tank my heterandria formosa (is that the least killi you're referring to? It's a livebearer and isn't in one of the killifish families) don't limit themselves to the upper region but also swim in the bottom and throughout the tank. Really the males just follow the females around. The females do go up near the top to give birth, it seems. I see them hiding there a lot. But they're everywhere, really.
Here's a video of a female chilling in some hydrocotyle leucocephala.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Mzu0e8Rs8
But they also readily go all over. In this video, where I mistake a girl for a guy (the first video clip, the fish being followed is a girl), you can see they're on the bottom of the tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW2OUuzJCeE
One difference I've noticed between heterandria formosa fry and guppy fry is that the formosa fry will chill in the middle of a hydrocotyle leucocephala leaf, safe from predation from below. The guppies don't do that. The formosa fry also move much slower and less twitchily than the guppy fry, whose spastic movements make them more likely to get eaten. I was having a problem with lack of vegetation recently, where the guppies were eating a lot of their fry. The formosa birth rate didn't stutter. They are way better at not getting eaten than guppy fry of the same size. They're... smarter? I mean, they displayed the leaf-sitting behavior, so I think that's a justified statement. By the way I added some ceratophyllum to help out the guppy fry (it's spiky and painful for adult fish to go into) and saw guppy fry for the first time in a while. Yay ceratophyllum, my favorite fry saving plant.
Mmm, hey, have you seen my bucket tank? The formosa breed like crazy in there.
youtube.com/watch?v=-uIvjlV6Z38
In my tank my heterandria formosa (is that the least killi you're referring to? It's a livebearer and isn't in one of the killifish families) don't limit themselves to the upper region but also swim in the bottom and throughout the tank. Really the males just follow the females around. The females do go up near the top to give birth, it seems. I see them hiding there a lot. But they're everywhere, really.
Here's a video of a female chilling in some hydrocotyle leucocephala.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Mzu0e8Rs8
But they also readily go all over. In this video, where I mistake a girl for a guy (the first video clip, the fish being followed is a girl), you can see they're on the bottom of the tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW2OUuzJCeE
One difference I've noticed between heterandria formosa fry and guppy fry is that the formosa fry will chill in the middle of a hydrocotyle leucocephala leaf, safe from predation from below. The guppies don't do that. The formosa fry also move much slower and less twitchily than the guppy fry, whose spastic movements make them more likely to get eaten. I was having a problem with lack of vegetation recently, where the guppies were eating a lot of their fry. The formosa birth rate didn't stutter. They are way better at not getting eaten than guppy fry of the same size. They're... smarter? I mean, they displayed the leaf-sitting behavior, so I think that's a justified statement. By the way I added some ceratophyllum to help out the guppy fry (it's spiky and painful for adult fish to go into) and saw guppy fry for the first time in a while. Yay ceratophyllum, my favorite fry saving plant.
Mmm, hey, have you seen my bucket tank? The formosa breed like crazy in there.
youtube.com/watch?v=-uIvjlV6Z38
#7
Michael Wolfe
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- Board of Directors
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- North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage
Posted 05 November 2013 - 08:01 PM
Hornwort would be my first suggestion... but even water lettuce would work, I have used it before for other small fishes to breed and hide.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
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