Since I removed my dollar sunfish my male banded killies have turned a blackish color, and since my last water change they have been competing for the females attention. (so far the females so far seem uninterested).

This made me wonder about breeding killies. So far the killies share their tank with a Hornpout (brown bullhead), an oto cat, and a couple chinese algea eaters.

I have a few questions though.

1. Will their be any evidence they bred if they did it when i am away, will the males de-color or such.

2. Do I have to worry about the fish in the tank eating the eggs or their young?

3. If eggs are layed how long do they take to hatch?

4. Do killies nest or just deposite eggs? do they guard their young?

5. What do I feed the young? do I have to raise infusoria or will micro granules for baby fish or frozen daphina like I feed to baby guppies be enough.

6. How long until it's safe to givwe the babies away (I plan on giving a couple to a pet store owner who helped me with setting up my tank.)

I have no specific experience to offer regarding banded killies, but just in general: bullheads will eat anything that is vaguely edible and fits into their mouths. Most other fish will eat eggs too. They're the perfect food: crammed with nutrition, easy to digest, don't run away or fight back. It's a wonder fish manage to reproduce at all.

Most people who are really serious about breeding killlies put nylon spawning mops in the tanks and check them every couple of days or so.

I have never tried to breed banded killies. I don't care to pick mops so I opt for rotating the adults into different tanks.

Many killie species like to spawn on the bottom. So the idea is to set them up in a tank, condition them, and, in a week or two, move them to another tank. Especially if a rotund female suddenly looks thinner.

Set the tank up to ensure egg survival:course, as apposed to fine, gravel. Lots and lots of plants and java moss on the bottom for the eggs to get lost in.

As far as feeding the fry goes, I don't know for sure, but I'm guess that the fry can eat finely milled flake or pellets.

I once kept mummichog and managed to have a few fry make it in a tank filled with mummichog and mollies. I didn't do anything much to accommodate the fry.

When killies start spawning, they tend to be prolific, spawning every couple of days or so for weeks.

Good luck.

Since I removed my dollar sunfish my male banded killies have turned a blackish color, and since my last water change they have been competing for the females attention. (so far the females so far seem uninterested).

This made me wonder about breeding killies. So far the killies share their tank with a Hornpout (brown bullhead), an oto cat, and a couple chinese algea eaters.

I have a few questions though.

1. Will their be any evidence they bred if they did it when i am away, will the males de-color or such.

2. Do I have to worry about the fish in the tank eating the eggs or their young?

3. If eggs are layed how long do they take to hatch?

4. Do killies nest or just deposite eggs? do they guard their young?

5. What do I feed the young? do I have to raise infusoria or will micro granules for baby fish or frozen daphina like I feed to baby guppies be enough.

6. How long until it's safe to givwe the babies away (I plan on giving a couple to a pet store owner who helped me with setting up my tank.)

For fairly large fry, crumbled HBH Soft N Moist makes a great fry food. It crumbles very fine.

I have watched banded killies spawn in my tanks but never tried to save fry.
I also frequently watch them spawn in the wild because they spawn in only inches of H2O in sandy open areas - easy viewing.
Males like single isolated plants or small clumps which they guard and chase away other males. Females will sometimes burrow deep into the weed clumps, other times barely brush by as they deposit eggs. I have seen the laying female turn around and burrow back into the weeds to eat their own eggs too.
In my tank, an isolated clump of java moss was used and they preferred to use the top few inches near the surface. They ate their eggs and various other species would have got any fry. Just too common and boring for me to try to save them.

Using my experience with other killies, I'd say a sparse tank, rotate weed clumps or spawning mops into hatch tanks every few days [or rotate the killies out of a planted tank], keep several females well fed. They don't drop all at once but only a few at a time and stay plump and active for a long time.
Eggs probably hatch relatively quick but hatch at staggered times with great variation in fry size [laid in small batches]. Keep water shallow in hatch tank to aid swim up. Fry should be good size and grow well on powdered quality flake.
Pretty much text book killie spawning.

cool, but i do not have a hatch tank so I may have to move the killies themselves at hatching, i just moved the bullhead out of the tank today just in case he'd be trouble.

He'd probably be better off in the new tank, i find bullhead are less shy and more active when kept with others of their own kind.

I hope I will get a successful spawn.