Zapins

They just bred! I had them setup in a 10g tank. 2 females 1 male and a heck of a lot of taiwan moss.

I've been feeding them bloodworms and tropical basic flake. They took about 3-4 weeks to get into breeding condition.

I saw the male and one of the females going around the tank together and the male would wrap his anal fin around her stomach and waving it (probably to blow sperm towards the eggs) as she pressed her stomach to some moss. They were at it for about 2 hours!! I can't see any of the eggs probably because they are clear, but in 7-14 days I'm hoping to see babies!!

Do you think he will breed with the second female?

suaojan

You can take the moss out and try to find the eggs that should stick some where on the moss. You have to hatch the eggs in another tank because killie parents will eat the fries.

Zapins

Yikes, hopefully not since there is a basket ball sized chunk of moss in the tank! I'll never find them all haha.

clifford

Congrats on the success. I had heard that this species wasn't difficult to breed, but it's one of the only killies I've tried that just will not reproduce for me.

My pair is in a ten gallon with a decent ammount of java moss that has been getting plenty of live food-- still, nothing. They've been "adult sized" for well over a month now...so either I'm doing something they don't like, or maybe they're eating any fry that show up.

Tonight I'll have to try suaojan's advice and start searching for eggs, but I never seem to find eggs in my killie tanks...I just notice the fry once they start to show up!

Cliff

Zapins

I heard they only start breeding if the tank is a bit dirty. I left the extra food on the bottom - some started to decay but I left it alone.

I noticed that there are thousands of tiny white microscopic things crawling on the glass now. I suspect the extra rotten food stimulated the growth of microorganisms that the fry will eat. The parent killies probably noticed there was enough food for the babies to eat and started laying eggs.

Mine took 3-4 weeks to breed, I have 2 females 1 male in a tank full of moss.

Lionsfan

I've breed australes many times and you can do a couple of things to get them to spawn. Hanging a spawning mop will almost always work and doing water changes will also trigger spawning events. I have never heard of dirty water spawning but hey if it works... Keep feeding bloodworms too.

Parents may eat their fry. Larger fry may hunt smaller fry. Provide a ton of cover all over the tank and that should eliminate some of the predation.

The best set-up I have seen was a 40 long tank that was heavily planted with vals and duckweed with some other floating plants. The owner used mops and left them in the tank to hatch. Once the fry hatched, they swam up to the top of the tank into the cover of the floating plants and vals. He would just scoop the babies out of the tank and seperate them by size every week or two. Pretty cool set up.

Good luck with a very pretty fish,
Scott

Zapins

Well, the male hasn't bred with the second female and seems to dislike her. Sometimes he makes runs at her, but it doesn't look severe, she doesn't seem to be stressed by this, just a little taken aback.

The original pair of killies keep breeding every day to every other day! They are like machines!

I'm still feeding them frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp and flake food. There are also a ton of micro worms all over the glass and in the moss and several tiny water bugs.

I'm a little worried that the female will wear herself out with so much egg laying. But we will see.

Hopefully the first batch of eggs will hatch soon! I heard they take 10-20 days to hatch and according to my first post they laid eggs about 14 days ago soo... any day now...

There is some duckweed growing at the top as well (which is insane because I haven't had duckweed in months and the only possible source was dried up duck weed that was dried up and stuck to the glass of the tank for the last 6 months).

Zapins

Hmm, well I saw a baby fish yesterday for about 2 seconds before it vanished. I didn't get a good look at it but I am pretty sure it was a baby since it moves horizontally sideways extremely quickly and there isn't anything in the tank that small that could move sideways that fast.

I can't seem to find any others but I suspect they are well hidden in the taiwan moss.