Simpsonichthys Santanae "Santana Creek"Project

[daworldisblack]

So been meaning to try Annual Killifishes for a while now and got my hands on some eggs of this species finally this year since I remembered to get eggs in at the right time. I got 21 mature eggs and 19 that were freshly collected. I just wetted the mature eggs earlier in the afternoon and a few hours later, I have 2 hatched so far. I did not use oxygen pills but I did use cooler water. Not sure if they're free-swimming or belly-sliding right now but I got two who hatched! Swirling the hatch beaker (about 0.5cm of water in there with the peat) i can see the other developed eggs pretty distinctly so fingers crossed! Got microworms ready as well as some paramecium. Also have decap brine shrimp but am hesitant on that.



Hatching them in .5cm of cold aged tank water thats been aerated. Just a measuring cup.



Fry!

[robt18]

Beyond cool! Way to take a chance on such a cool fish, not a whole lot in the hobby around here, great to see someone doing something different and having success!

[exv152]

Awesome, Simpsonichthys Santanae is a nice colourful fish. Congrats!

[fischkopp]

Keep it coming! I did pick up some Killi earlier this year, but have not time to work with them. Lot's of work, but very rewarding little fish!

[Lithops]

Nice !

[sas]

Great stuff, nice work!
Do keep us posted as they mature with lots of pics.

[daworldisblack]

Thanks all! Pretty excited about it! To date i have 3 hatched so far. Hoping for more today! Otherwise, its time to re-dry them and tuck 'em away in a zip lock back for another couple more weeks to incubate!

[daworldisblack]

So I only ended up with 3 lil guys last week after the first wetting. I dried the peat and eggs again and will try to wetting it again sometime tomorrow or next Tuesday - which would be an exact 2 weeks. Here are updates of the lil guys who are growing like crazy. Feeding microworms and infusoria.


Bottom Right Corner



All 3 doing well so far!

[daworldisblack]

I got round to a second wetting of the first batch of eggs and also hatched out the second batch not too long after. They're all growing well- these guys are supposed to grow faster since they're annuals but that seems slower then I anticipated. Maturing process is taking a little while. The later batches are a little smaller still but the original 3 are decent sized and starting to colour up!


All the little ones - can't count how many I have left exactly


One of the original 3 - in a 5Gal grow-out tank with 8 Others


Really hard to get a good pic of it but here you can see some colouring

[daworldisblack]

Got a  few males and females from this brood. Almost 1:2 m/f ratio! These are annuals though and at this point i wonder if they are a lil too old for mating.

One of the alpha males.


A female and a sub-male:


Another Female.


Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[exv152]

I've heard these guys like cooler water temps like 20-23ºC. Are you using a heater in this tank?

[daworldisblack]

I've heard these guys like cooler water temps like 20-23ºC. Are you using a heater in this tank?

Nope no heater - its in my bedroom so its not too cold - it hovers around 21^o which is also perfect for my crystal shrimps in there. Warmer temp -> sped up aging since its an annual species, from what I read so I keep 'em in cooler water.

[fischkopp]

Very nice. You should certainly try to breed them! I guess you would have to dump a lot of peat into the tank?

And I see you have fissidens. Keep me in mind if ever a little piece breaks loose.