Gastanker, whatcha doing Thanksgiving weekend? Beautiful shrimp, beautiful killies...I've been seeing eBay auctions for Killi eggs...how is their temperment? Anyway, jellies are awesome...I could sit and watch them on shrooms forever too, but those tanks are SO freaking expensive...I was actually on their site yesterday looking at the tanks, way too much unless you have some serious cash to blow!
I should be in the Bay Area (Marin County) that Saturday, and back home a few hours north on Sunday. Going to be in NorCal for thanksgiving?
I ordered my killifish eggs from ebay -
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Killifish-Mixed-6-Type-50-eggs-Artemia-20000-eggs-/270837530138?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0f2cbe1a
Great company. They have a regular website as well and several different variety packs along with individual species.
I like them, they are like really pretty smart active miniature betas that don't need to be kept by themselves (I guess they are nothing like betas except the looks). Technically they should be kept in a species specific tank but mine doesn't seem too bothered with it's tank mates and like I said before, is the most fun to watch - finds every hole to poke its head in, nibbles on every type of vegetation, investigates every bubble... Always doing something fun and meaningful versus just swimming back and forth.
Killies are not the easiest though. Of the 50 eggs I ordered about 35 hatched, of those 35 I was able to keep ~15 alive for over a week. Of those 15 I ended up with two adults. Now most of this is my fault as I was not completely prepared (don't think anyone can be their first time). When killies hatch they are SMALL!! Like the size of a brine shrimp small. Some species are larger than others and can eat baby brine shrimp from the start but others are so tiny that even baby brine shrimp are too large ( I was unaware of this). You need to make a kind of soup called infusoria, basically boil some spinach in a jar with a tiny bit of water and then set it outside and wait for a week or two until it has broken down into a green jar of liquid sludge - supposedly the tiny tiny ones will eat this up. For $15 shipped from Thailand I'm going to give it another go, I just can't decide if I want to go with another mixed pack or just get rachovii and the type I have now.
Ps - killies are seasonal fish and thus are very short lived (1 year max). Just something to keep in mind.
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