Running a fishroom can be time consuming, and sometimes there just isn’t enough time. I had quite a lot of eggs of Nothobranchius furzeri from last autumn 2007 , and i’d been keeping them cool (fishroom floor, 20 degrees C) because I knew I wouldn’t have time to raise them until July 2008.

I had 3 bags of Nothobranchius furzeri Gona-Re-Zhou and one of a red strain, Moz 99-4. I’d been checking them on and off; eggs had always been visible, in various states of devlopment. A couple weeks before I was to hatch them, I put them  on a high shelf in my fishroom (28 degrees C).

Day 1: Approximately 220  fry hatched from 4 bags. Very few belly sliders, but a few deformities in the Moz 99-4s. Vast majority of fry are normal and healthy. Fry fed newly hatched artemia immediately.

Day 2: Some fry are moved from the hatching containers to their new tanks. Fry fed newly hatched artemia. Most eat ravenously, though a few, despite no influence of other fry don’t eat. They examine the artemia nauplii, but then just don’t eat, seemingly preferring to go hungry.

Day 3: Remaining fry moved to their tanks. More artemia.

Day 6: The fry are offered (and take) grindal worms for the first time.

Video Clip: Nothobranchius furzeri Gona Re Zhou eating grindal worms (10 days old). Click the the image to go to youtube and play the clip. Note there is a high resolution version (just below the image on youtube, look for the ‘watch in high quality’ link)

Day 10: They are given cyclops and small mosquito larvae. The cyclops are agile and take some catching.

Day 12: Some fish ate cyclopeze when offered, though by no means all. They are still not particularly keen on it.

Video Clip: Nothobranchius furzeri Gona Re Zhou (14 days old) eating Daphnia magna). Click the the image to go to youtube and play the clip. Note there is a high resolution version (just below the image on youtube, look for the ‘watch in high quality’ link)

Day 13: I collected a lot of daphnia and mosquito larvae (including larger ones, see below).

Top: Nothobranchius furzeri Gona Re Zhou examining a mosquito larvae. Bottom: Eating a mosquito larvae.

So that was the first two weeks. They’ve got a little bigger now, and they are always hungry. Still no sign of any colouration to determine which are the males, but some of the larger individuals are clearly male. Keeping them well fed enough to prevent too much canibalism is tricky, and I will be separating them soon into small groups until they sex out.

Austrofundulus species don’t come up too often, even at dedicated killifish auctions – so I was pleasantly surprised to purchase a pair at the 2007 BKA convention.

Like many South American annuals, they are generally brown fish, but with some very subtle irredescent colours too. The tail of the male flashes between yellow and blue – getting a photograph that captures the delicate beauty of a fish in motion is next to impossible.

I’d not kept Austrofundulus guajira before, so I read up a bit about them. The males can be a bit aggressive to the females apparently. I set them up in a 12″x12″x18″ – fairly sparsely set up: filter, tub of peat to spawn in, water sprite and java moss.

The advice I had read was to keep them together for short periods only – just to allow spawning. I initially separated the pair every evening, the female’s caudal fin did get nipped a bit, but this only seemed to happen when the fish were first put together each day - keeping the fish apart was actually making life harder on the female!

 After a few days I decided to stop removing one fish, which was a good move; now the pair happily spend their day hanging out together. I have never seen the female attempt to hide!

These fish are certainly hungy eaters. They lunge at their dinner – whatever it is – even jumping out to get food I haven’t quite put in yet

They are being fed a diet of whiteworms, small slugs, flake, fruit flies and redworms. I would imagine, by the amount they eat, and the vigour with which they eat, that these fish will be growing for some time!

The fish did well, laying huge numbers of eggs, many of which were distributed in the UK. When my first bag was ready I had a lot of tank space, and so raised a LOT of fry.

But what about the original fish? The three pictures above are of the same male fish, taken at the convention, Oct 2006, Jan 2007 and Oct 2007. They have spent their year in one of my warmer tanks, yet are still going strong. At the time of writing, some 13 months after the above photo I still have a magnificent (in size and colouration) trio, who although old and slighly gnarly looking, are active, hungry and still spawning.

The ‘hump’ evident in the third picture is a typical sign of an old notho. But notice the red blotch that has developped at the base of the dorsal fin. Will this be a common feature in elderly males of this species?

These photos don’t actually show the full extent of redness of this fish, as the flash tends to wash it out – in the body in particular, and also the blue of the eye. The final picture (below) shows the same fish, also photographed this month (Oct 2007), but without a flash.

This species is very peaceful – the more colourful males are certainly more shy than the females and subordinate males, so tend to lurk in the darker areas of the tank. They are also hardy and show no real tendancy to eat their siblings.

 Due to its peaceful nature, long life and bright colouration, this would make a good beginners Nothobranchius species.

Photographing this fish has been a challenge. The light that shines on them can completely alter colouration; the use of a flash gives a clearer, more defined image (top picture), however lacking a lot of the blue. Without, the colours, particularly amount of blue, depend on the flourescent tubes above. In a dimly lit tank the fishes colour changes as the fish gets nearer or further from the light source. The two pictures above were taken a few seconds apart.

2 weeks on, and how are the doing? Well I set them up in a 12″x12″x18″ tank, subdued light, with two very large mops, filter, and nothing else. They are just in my standard water – reverse osmosis, hardened with JBL Aquadur to a hardness of 300ppm, and at a temperature of 23-25 degrees C.

They’re pretty hungry, wolfing down a mix of whiteworms, bloodworms, flake, and the odd large redworm. Egg production was slow at first, though has picked up now. The first batch of eggs I picked were placed on peat but all fungused. Are these fish just that little bit too old?

Its hard to say what your favourite killifish species are… but in my top 5 would have to be Nothobranchius furzeri; i’ve been keeping the Gona-Re-Zhou furzeri on and off for some time now, a long with other Mozambique collections since they became available in 1999.

And what an interesting animal. Furzeri actually holds the record of shortest living vertebrate – you’re pretty lucky if the fish live past 6 months old. Its also one of the longest kept strains in the killifish hobby, having been imported into America once in 1969 – and still going strong almost 40 years later.

It is regarded as one of the more difficult species to maintain long-term, but this need not be the case, if a few simple steps are taken.

It was initially discovered by Richard Furzer and Dr. W. Warne of the (then) Rhodesia Dept. of Agriculture, in the Sazale Pan of the Gona-Re-Zhou game reserve. The reserve had only been open since 1967, being created for the elephants in the area; Gona-Re-Zhou means “place of elephants” in the Shona language.

The original collection was given the name Nothobranchius species U-2 until it was formally described by Jubb in 1971. Nothobranchius orthonotus, (initially designated species U-3), was also present in the same pool.

So why is this species regarded as so tricky? Well there are a number of reasons, in fact common to all annual fish, but exaggerated in N. furzeri

1. The short lifespan, and therefore time in which to collect eggs
2. The fast growth and predatory nature of a few young fish
3. The unpredictable development of eggs

None of these problems are insurmountable with a bit of effort

Problem: Short lifespan

When you hatch a batch of Nothos some fish always outgrow the others. In my experience the quickest growers will always bloom magnificently and die equally quickly. These fish (typically male) reach sexual maturity after a few weeks, and last 3-4 months at most. The more slowly growing individuals take longer to sex out, but will live sinificantly longer than their quick-growing siblings.

Solution: It is essential to make sure that all fish have peat to lay in as soon as they need it

Problem: Predatory nature of young fish

Moreso than other nothos, N. furzeri fish and fry will eat their siblings if they can. In many cases this will be the quicker growing males eating the smaller unsexed fish. This can be a real problem with smaller hatches. If left unchecked it can result in a tank with no female fish.

Solution: Fry should have access to nourishing food at all times (Artemia, grindal worm), the more access they have to food, the less canibalism will occur. Faster growing fish should be separated from the smaller individuals as early as a few days old. Allowing hiding spaces also helps – the rearing tank should be large enough, with clumps of free floating plantation and dim lighting.

Problem: The unpredictable development of eggs

There is little you can do to counter this. Development can take anything between a few weeks, up to several years (though usually less than one year).

Solution: Keep a lot of eggs – don’t distribute too many, but most of all examine the eggs more regularly than with other species- catch them when eyed up and ready! Don’t keep the eggs too warm.

Hence my new killifish blog. Hopefully i’ll keep a record of some of the more interesting developments in my fish room, and surprise myself at some point in the future.

So, what new fish were at the 2007 convention? Well I returned with a few interesting new fish, and a few old favourites. Practically all of my newly purchased fish were Nothobranchius - with three notable exceptions. I bought a nice pair of an unusual Colombian anual killi Austrofundulus guajira, some lampeyes Rhexipanchax lamberti, (I can not recall either of these species available at auction in the UK) and a giant pair of Fundulopanchax sjoestedti ’Niger delta’

There was a good selection of Nothos available; 21 lots were on display – from old favourites like Nothobranchius steinforti and Nothobranchius furzeri to the newly described Nothobranchius hengstleri. 10 of the Nothos present were from 2005 collections TAN RB (Kiril Kardashev, Konstantin Shidlovsky and Sergey Torgashev), MZHL (Holger Hengstler and Julia Lange), TZH (Holger Hengstler),  and a TD (Brian Watters, Barry Cooper, Francisco Malumbres and Ruud Wildekamp) collection of Nothobranchius rubroreticulatus

Another new strain was Fundulosoma thierryi GHN 06-2 (above) from Ghana.

There was also a breeding group of another 2006 thierryi collection - Ada GH 06-5, although I didn’t manage to get a decent photograph of them. Both strains are a lot less orange, and perhaps more spotty than the GH 94-1 strain that has been relatively abundant in the UK for the last few years (right – although this individual is unusual in having that large spot on the dorsal fin).

So what nothos did I bring home? Thats another installment.