3 replies to this topic

[creature707]

Looking for a small group of sexed Pygmy Killifish, I have one pair and would like a larger group. I'm hoping to find a place to buy them online but have had no luck. I placed an order for a group from Sachs Systems Aquaculture, but they were out of stock and I was told that they would be going out of business on June 30th. 

Anyone know where to find Pygmy Killifish for sale?

[swampfish]

I've got about 100 extra pygmy killifish. They are multiple generation progeny from some I bought at the 2017 American Killifish Association Annual Meeting in Northbrook, IL and some fry I bought at the NANFA auction later that year. I think they are all from the Chipola River in Florida. They've been reproducing in my bog pond with my pitcher plants during the summers that I keep filled with 5.5 pH rainwater.  

 

I'm willing to send you some killies for the cost of shipping, but I have no experience with summer shipping. I do have small styrofoam shipping containers and cold packs saved from fish shipped to me. 

 

Phil Nixon

Central Illinois

pnixon@illinois.edu

[Michael Wolfe]

Phil, tell me more about your breeding set up or conditions... if you are having such success outdoors, I want to know how to replicate that!

[swampfish]

I maintain a bog pond that is a 160 gallon pre-formed plastic pond about 3 X 4 ft. with a shallow 12-18 inch bay area at each of the four corners. The water in the bays is about 2-3 inches deep. The pond is 18 inches deep at its deepest with the deep part in the ground. The bays sit on top of the ground. I have 30 inch high fencing on the west and south sides covered with autumn clematis to keep the pond from getting too hot from afternoon sun. 

 

The pond is filled year-round with rainwater that I collect from my house roof. My rainwater has a pH of 5 to 5.5, and the water in the bog typically has a pH of 5.5 to 6.0 measured with pH paper strips. Outside of three or four pitcher plants in foam floating planters, I add several water hyacinths which reproduce well in that shallow of a water body. Most of the water surface is covered with duckweed, which I remove some of every few weeks to provide open water to feed the fish. There is no filtration or aeration.

 

The fish are fed daily with TetraMin flakes ground fine between the fingers. I add a dozen or so pygmy sunfish in the spring and harvest 50-60 in the fall. 

 

During the winter, the fish are kept in unheated 15 and 20 gallon tanks in my basement. Each tank has a sponge filter and contains aquarium strain Najas. There are overhead aquarium lights on a 12 light - 12 dark hour timer. The water is the same rainwater I collect off of my roof. Temperature typically ranges from 76 degrees F in the fall to a mid-winter low of 54 degrees F. The fish are fed daily on finely ground TetraMin flakes and are fed newly-hatched brine shrimp every other day. I find that feeding brine shrimp only every other day keeps me from having a hydra problem. I think that the pygmy killies reproduce in the aquaria as well. I don't notice baby fish, but I seem to end up with more fish that I start with. Each tank typically starts out with 15-20 fish, but ends up with 40-50 after a few months. The Najas gets pretty thick in areas that could easily hide the babies.

 

Hope this helps, Phil Nixon.