This project is now on hold for a while as the tank I was going to use is now a fast flowing set up for Jon's White Cloud Mountain Minnows and Hillstream Loach.

I'm loving it: WCMM are much under-rated and I'm finding them to be very attractive and active fish.....I knew my procrastination on the Betta tank must have a purpose and now I know what it is

Well I managed to kill my first lot of daphnia. I'm not sure how, but they were very sluggish on arrival and though they rallied, I'd lost them within 10 days. I think I overfed them.

I'm starting again with a slightly different approach; reusing the container I received with the "starter kit", but this time I've put sand in the bottom, added a mini sponge filter and intend to put some MTS in there as well as the daphnia. To avoid the possibility of a problem with the daphnia supplied last time (seller has had some poor feedback lately), I'm going to buy a bag of live daphnia from an LFS and use them to start the culture. At least there's less chance of them getting too cold or otherwise being damaged in the post.

The microworms, however, have taken off well and I've been harvesting small amounts for a few days. I'm using a small paint brush to wipe around the sides of the container where the worms congregate and then rinsing them off into the Ember Tetra tank. The Embers are very keen on them!

My daphnia culture kit arrived today. I was worried the daphnia may not have survived as it had been posted 5 days ago and it's been so cold, but fortunately they were alive, though somewhat sluggish on arrival. After they'd been in their permanent set up for a few hours they were much more lively, which is encouraging.

I received a plastic container, a bag of live daphnia and some food pellets. I filled the container about half-way with a mixture of fresh dechlorinated tap water and water taken from one of my tanks. I acclimatised the daphnia just as I would fish by floating the bag and introducing some of the tank water every ten minutes for half an hour and then tipped the daphnia into the tank. I added a food pellet and piece of Java moss from one of my tanks so now I need to wait and see if they reproduce.

Here's a photo of the daphnia in their container:



I checked on the microworms too, and though I can't tell for sure if they're even alive, I think they are as there are areas on the surface that look kind of glossy. It should take about two weeks to see a big increase in numbers, but at least they don't smell at the moment!

Here's a photo of the microworm culture. You can see the mashed potato around the edges, but the main focus at the moment is the area with oatmeal as that's the medium they arrived in:



I'm housing the cultures in the cupboard under my Roma 90, and have a clip-on light in there to provide illumination for the daphnia. I'll be putting the shelf back in so I can run my brine shrimp hatchery in there too.

Well I haven't made any progress with the tank yet except in my head where I now have a good idea of how I want this to look, but my microworm starter culture arrived in the post today.

I'm hoping to successfully culture these as food for any fry the Bettas may produce, as well as for fry from other breeding projects. They'll make a good addition to the Ember Tetras diet and help condition them for breeding too.

I decided to use instant mashed potato as my culture medium as from reading around this seems to be least likely to develop very unpleasant odours. I used an empty butter container with about half an inch of instant mash made up to a stiff consistency; moist, but not at all runny and mixed in a little dried yeast. The culture was spread evenly over the surface and then the lid put on, with a good number of small air holes so now I'll just need to wait and see if the worms start to reproduce.

I'm going to be starting work on a new divided tank set up for a pair of Betta splendens very soon so will be documenting progress here for anyone interested.

I have a Juwel Rekord 700 which I will be dividing in the middle to make two 35 litre compartments and keeping a male on one side and female on the other. I hope to get cracking soon on this and will be documenting the whole thing from dividing and setting up the tank, through decor, planting and cycling to installing the fish.

I'll be concurrently starting some new live-food cultures as I'm hoping to breed the Betta pair at some point too along with one or two other breeding projects so will report progress on that as well.

Just a quick update: babies are doing well a week after hatching. They're still extremely small and very hard to spot, but are growing and hopefully thriving.

Having given the peat over two days in water I haven't found any more fry, but have discovered a number of fungussed eggs which were presumably not fertile. Today I've disposed of the peat and in the other side of the container have at least three fry. There may be as many as five, but I can't be sure. I thought I counted five as I transferred them with the turkey baster, but can only spot three now. Maybe I've lost a couple, or maybe I missed a couple of times when collecting them and one was counted more than once

They are very hard to see, all approximately this size - and I have to look through my camera with the macro lens attached to see them at all, so today's partial water change was very nerve-wracking

The are still feeding on Liquifry and infusoria at the moment, but I have brine shrimp eggs percolating in the hatchery so expect to start feeding bbs tomorrow.

Here's are a pic where you can see they are already looking like tiny fish. The shot shows one of the fry next to a single strand of Java Moss, which gives some idea of just how tiny they are

Today is officially wetting day based on the date these eggs were harvested. I've finally got round to wetting the eggs a little later in the day than planned due to a blocked sink

I'm using a double well food storage container for the initial stages. This is new and unused and has been sterilised with boiling water. I've mixed some RO with Seachem Replenish, Alkaline Buffer
and Acid Buffer to give a gH of 5 and pH of 6.6. The water has been warmed to 25C and an inch or so poured into the right-hand side of the double container along with a few strands of Java Moss.
When the babies have hatched and are swimming I'll move them into this side of the box and start feeding them.







I've crumbled the peat into the left hand compartment and poured about an inch of water over it.



The container is sitting on a heating pad intended for keeping demi-johns warm when wine-making. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see if any of the eggs hatch.
That could happen in anything between two hours and two days, so it may be quite a while before I update again.
FX!

Update 11.30 pm

Just had a look and they are beginning to hatch; I've counted three so far. They're very tiny and not yet free-swimming; at most 2mm long:

Here's a little information about Killifish while we're waiting....

Killis are fascinating in the way they have adapted to their environment to give their offspring the best chance of survival. Their eggs are capable of surviving in a dormant state in damp mud during dry periods and then reactivating to hatch when the rains come.

There are essentially three types of Killifish. Annual Killis live for just one year. Near to the end of their lives they spawn every day in mud just before the dry season begins. The waters they live in dry up completely at this time, and all the adult fish die. After a period of drought, eventually the annual rains arrive and the buried eggs rapidly hatch into new, young Killifish who grow, mature and repeat the process in their one year lifespan. There are many annual species including Nothobranchius, Fundulosoma and Callopanchax from Africa and Austrolebias, Cynolepias and Simpsonichthys species from South America.

Next are non-annual Killis. These tend to live longer lives as their natural habitat is in waters that don't dry up. Usually these will spawn in plants. The most popular species kept in aquariums are from the Aphyosemion genus.

The third group are the semi-annual Killifish. This group live in waters that sometimes dry up. They tend to live longer than annuals, but not as long as the non-annuals; typically around 3 years. Species in this group spawn in plants and in mud giving their young every chance to survive the variable conditions they live in. The species I'm attempting to hatch from dormant eggs, Fundulopanchax gardneri gardneri is a semi-annual Killifish.

Perhaps the oddest of all Killifish is the Mangrove Killifish, Rivulatus marmoratus. This species, which inhabits the muddy mangrove swamps of Florida and Belize has a number of amazing strategies to help reproduce itself in difficult conditions. Firstly, when the swamps dry out, this fish can flip-flop its way up into the Mangrove trees and take up residence in rotting roots and branches, where some moisture remains. When it does this, it also alters it's own gills to breathe air and excretes nitrogen through it's skin. These changes reverse when the fish is back in water, sometimes months later. The third adaptation is that this species can become hermaphrodite if no mate is available, developing both male and female sex organs to fertilise it's own eggs inside its body, after which tiny embryos are born into water.

That's just a very brief overview of these fascinating and often very colourful fish, so I'll sign off with a photo of my F. gardneri in their current state

I'll start this blog with a brief run down of why I'm attempting this for the first time.

I've kept Fundulopanchax gardneri - Steel Blue Killifish in my community tank for almost two years. I began with one pair and over time a few of their eggs hatched and the fry grew successfully, but when I added Yo-Yo Loaches (Botia almorhae) no more babies made it as the Yo-Yos love to follow any spawning fish around and hoover up the eggs.

Earlier this week I decided to take the two females and one of the males out and put them into a separate tank for spawning to increase their number, but the day I set up the spawning tank, disaster struck. I lost both females and with only males remaining I looked for anyone selling these beautiful fish. I had no luck, apart from finding one source selling them at more than I am willing to pay right now. The obvious alternative was to buy fertile eggs and incubate them.

I found a listing on a well-known internet auction site for 20+ fertile eggs, placed my bid and waited. I was the lucky winner and this morning my Postman delivered a small Jiffy envelope containing a sealed polythene bag of peat holding the eggs. Now I need to keep the peat warm, but not too warm, and moist, but not wet for the next week or so before adding water and watching for the fry to hatch. I'll be inspecting the eggs daily and looking for the characteristic dark eye spots that show they are ready for the rainy season - and waiting to hatch.



19th March
While waiting for "wetting day" I thought I'd just post a picture showing what I'm aiming for.

Fundulopanchax gardneri gardneri