Gardneri Killifish spawning help

[ccurtis]

I’m trying to get my gardneri killis to spawn. They seem happy and colored up. Well fed. I watched a ton of videos and have done everything the videos say to breed them, but it doesn’t appear mine are laying any eggs in my spawning mops. I have 2 males and 2 females in the tank. Any suggestions? 

[Fish Folk]

Show photos and videos of your setup, if possible.

They should spawn in mops for you. Their process is quite similar to F. scheeli, which I keep and breed. It may be that your _females_ have not yet developed roe. Isolate the females / separate them, and feed a diet that includes frozen foods: Daphnia, Omega-enriched Brine Shrimp, Herring eggs. If you have access to healthy live black worms, they’re excellent. Live tubifex are also excellent. Once you can literally see roe in the abdomen of your females, you should get excellent results…

[ccurtis]

I took a look at my females and I’m not 100 percent sure if I can see the roe or not. If it’s there it’s small. I took some quick photos of my setup and females. I’ll try to take better ones a little later when I can. Does the set up look correct. I’ve tried to get them to lay on the plants and the mops. I can’t find eggs on either. 

[Slick_Nick]

On 4/8/2023 at 3:07 PM, ccurtis said:

I took a look at my females and I’m not 100 percent sure if I can see the roe or not. If it’s there it’s small. I took some quick photos of my setup and females. I’ll try to take better ones a little later when I can. Does the set up look correct. I’ve tried to get them to lay on the plants and the mops. I can’t find eggs on either. 

It looks like a decent set up to me! Have you seen any of what looks like spawning from them at all or any breeding behavior? Also how is your water temp and hardness and stuff?

[ccurtis]

On 4/9/2023 at 12:46 AM, Slick_Nick said:

It looks like a decent set up to me! Have you seen any of what looks like spawning from them at all or any breeding behavior? Also how is your water temp and hardness and stuff?

I haven’t seen much spawning behavior at all.  My temp is 72. Here is a test from this morning with co-op test strip. Do you think maybe my water is a little to soft?  

Edited April 9, 2023 by ccurtis

[Slick_Nick]

On 4/9/2023 at 8:09 AM, ccurtis said:

I haven’t seen much spawning behavior at all.  My temp is 72. Here is a test from this morning with co-op test strip. Do you think maybe my water is a little to soft?  

That could be possible. I’ve had fish that wouldn’t breed for me before and I believe it had to do with me not getting their parameters right for breeding. They lived fine but didn’t breed. How long have you had them for?

[ccurtis]

On 4/9/2023 at 12:32 PM, Slick_Nick said:

That could be possible. I’ve had fish that wouldn’t breed for me before and I believe it had to do with me not getting their parameters right for breeding. They lived fine but didn’t breed. How long have you had them for?

I’ve had them for about 6 months. 

[Slick_Nick]

On 4/9/2023 at 10:19 AM, ccurtis said:

I’ve had them for about 6 months. 

That is definitely plenty of time for them to get comfortable where they are. Hopefully someone who has bred these specific killis can help. My Aphyosemions are breeding in the mop right now. I have really hard water and I knew where I was getting them had soft water so I started using half distilled and half tap to lower my tds before I got them. My water still isn’t nearly as soft as where I got them but I got it closer to the conditions they came from and they’ve done great! Best of luck to you I hope you get it figured out!

[Lowells Fish Lab]

A couple of things jump out to me just based on my own experiences with Gardneri. I don't think I've met a fish that would choose a yarn mop over a similarly positioned live plant. I'm thinking some of your eggs might be ending up on the pogo. Same but IMO slightly less likely with the moss. They also can deposit their eggs loosely around the outside of the mop which, in many cases, ends in them turning right around and eating them. For me they haven't been quite like rainbows or ricefish where you can leave a mop in the tank for an extended period and find it loaded with eggs. More often I find a small handful.

If you want to see them spawn and maybe minimize the time available for them to eat eggs, you can separate the sexes for a few days and give the females lots of egg-producing food. Then if you put them back together you ought to be able to watch them spawn right in front of you.

 

[Slick_Nick]

On 4/9/2023 at 1:23 PM, Lowells Fish Lab said:

A couple of things jump out to me just based on my own experiences with Gardneri. I don't think I've met a fish that would choose a yarn mop over a similarly positioned live plant. I'm thinking some of your eggs might be ending up on the pogo. Same but IMO slightly less likely with the moss. They also can deposit their eggs loosely around the outside of the mop which, in many cases, ends in them turning right around and eating them. For me they haven't been quite like rainbows or ricefish where you can leave a mop in the tank for an extended period and find it loaded with eggs. More often I find a small handful.

If you want to see them spawn and maybe minimize the time available for them to eat eggs, you can separate the sexes for a few days and give the females lots of egg-producing food. Then if you put them back together you ought to be able to watch them spawn right in front of you.

 

You brought up a great point @Lowells Fish Lab I’ve noticed with my killis the eggs seem to hatch rather quick compared to other species which makes it harder to leave a mop for a week to collect a bunch of eggs. It seemed like I had eggs hatching within 2 to 3 days. No heater in the tank so it’s about 72 degrees. Do you have another tank to move the adults into and see if any fry pop up in the tank. Like Lowell said they could be laying in other parts of the tank instead

[ccurtis]

On 4/9/2023 at 8:14 PM, Slick_Nick said:

You brought up a great point @Lowells Fish Lab I’ve noticed with my killis the eggs seem to hatch rather quick compared to other species which makes it harder to leave a mop for a week to collect a bunch of eggs. It seemed like I had eggs hatching within 2 to 3 days. No heater in the tank so it’s about 72 degrees. Do you have another tank to move the adults into and see if any fry pop up in the tank. Like Lowell said they could be laying in other parts of the tank instead

I do have another tank. Both are excellent points. I’ll move them and watch the tank for a couple weeks and see if any fry pop up. I figured the plants would be better over the mop, but I wasn’t seeing anything so I added the mop. I appreciate everyone’s input. I’ll keep you guys updated. 

[ccurtis]

So an update… I recently checked the spawning mop I put in and there were finally eggs in it. I think you guys were right in that they were spawning on the plants and moss in the tank and the parents were eating the babies before I even saw them. I moved the parents out of the tank they and now I have been fining some fry swimming around. I’m going to give it 3 or 4 weeks before I scoop out the fry and put the parents back to give the rest of the eggs a chance to hatch and see what I get. 

[Slick_Nick]

On 4/26/2023 at 2:15 PM, ccurtis said:

So an update… I recently checked the spawning mop I put in and there were finally eggs in it. I think you guys were right in that they were spawning on the plants and moss in the tank and the parents were eating the babies before I even saw them. I moved the parents out of the tank they and now I have been fining some fry swimming around. I’m going to give it 3 or 4 weeks before I scoop out the fry and put the parents back to give the rest of the eggs a chance to hatch and see what I get. 

That’s great news happy to hear it! Keep us updated on how things go!