Pick n pay fish

Hi there. I just saw an interesting thing at pick n pay. You get a little fish bowl, with eggs and brine shrimp eggs and salt. Then you just add water and wait for fish to hatch and your bbs. The picture on the box looks like the fish maybe some sort of danio very colourful. Its priced at R100 so maybe ill get it and see what comes up hehe. So just wondered if any of you guys/gals have seen this.

 

Yip, its Killifish

 

is it Killies or Brineshrimp?

 

both, you get a startet kit, with all the eggs

 

We @ Pet Stop came across this in a add from Game a few weeks back...

1stly...DONT buy this....especialy if you are in Gauteng...The Aphysemion killi's in there wont hatch in our hard water....
2ndly...no filter or heater.....

Its a shame that Verikak - I mean Verimark is killing more fish,just like they did with those bloody Aquababies tanks they had a few years ago that held like a cup of water in them and stocked with like 3 baby Malawis...

Shame on them - the harm they do our hobby makes me furious!!!! Little Johny crying his eyes out when his little fishy dies...or doesnt even hatch... The avarice of man knows no bounds!


-end of rant-

 

thanx for the headsup man, I would've bought this just for the novelty (and would've put the fry in a bigger tank eventually).

 

By all means - do give it a try if you have some experience with killifish(know im tempted...lol) - but make sure you prepare the water correctly(low pH,soft) - Also,the quality of Aphysemion ((gardneri? - it looked like) - will be low and nothing like the bright fish you get a pic of on the box...

If you seriously want to get into killis - much better to order some eggs online - they ship them through the post... or I think the Prof breeds a few...

 

What type of killies do you think they are? Easy way to source them without sending packages across the globe. If someone asks you where you got them say PnP and theyll laugh.

 

@azurekoi, or I could just come and support the shop and get something else thats cute and small. like those panda corys I've been eyeing!

 

Just saw @azurekoi 's reply, do you think its Gardneri because Notho eggs last much longer, Gardneri eggs wont last very long?

 

Yup - was definately an Aphysemion... thats why i said(gardneri?) - they went and "pimped" the colours a bit with photoshop....

 

@Anine i also thought of getting them but hatching them in larger tank with prepaired tank. The fish bowl thing i think is to cruel towards fish.

@azurekoi i take it that these wont live to long because they depend on rain season so that eggs hatch and parents die because of drought or empty pool. Isn't this the reason the eggs can go without the water for so long?

 

Just remember if you buy it you stimulate this cruel market. If they see they make money out of this they will continue supplying such gimmicks. Please do not support this even if you plan to use another container. We are much more educated than this, so if it is the Killifish eggs that you want we have the resources right here to find it within our own hobbyist community. Please do not support cruelty!

 

My wife & I saw this in the store and taught it was like some jelly growing thing that they normally sell...

 

Lol @jwalker - used to love those when I was a kid...we had competitions amoung the "gang" who's could grow the biggest...My fascination with them came to an abrubt end when I came back from a school tour to find my bratty baby sister had dumped her whole collection of them in my Pearl Gourami fry tank...

 

Yeah mate, im not familiar with the killi fish breeding\eggs etc... so...

 

8-10 killies in that ridiculously small container?? No heater...in winter, no filter. I bet they don't give the consumer a crash course in fish breeding.
Just add some chlorinated tap water and the magic soil and watch how fast they can die :sick:

 

The pictures on the box shows a picture of a male Fundulopanchax robertsoni, a red fish in the middle that I am not sure about and a photoshopped Fundulopanchax nigerianus.
Fundulopanchax robertsoni and Fundulopanchax nigerianus only has a max incubation time of two months.
I don't think they would be that dumb to use a semi annual killifish like that. They probably are only showing the wrong pictures on the box and have Nothobranchius eggs in them. Nothobranchius eggs should still be okay after a year.

Nothobranchius eggs might not be ready to hatch when they buy the kit. They have to indicate on the box that they need to see if the eggs are eyed up before wetting the eggs and also re-drying the left over eggs.
Otherwise you will get a lot of upset customers that will say the kit doesn't work.

Here are estimate incubation times for some Nothos:

Species Incubation Period
(Weeks at 74-75oF)

N. eggersi 10-14
N. elongatus 12-14
N. foerschi 12-16
N. furzeri 20-30
N. guentheri 12-16
N. janpapi 12-14
N. jubbi 12-20
N. kafuensis 10-18
N. kirki 16-24
N. korthausae 10-16
N. kuhntae "Beira '91" 20-36
N. lourensi 12-16
N. melanospilus 12-16
N. neumanni "Manyara" 10-16
N. neumanni "Mbeya" 14-24
N. neumanni (Serengeti-Lake Victoria populations) 6-10
N. orthonotus 20-36
N. palmqvisti 12-16
N. patrizii 14-18
N. rachovii 20-28
N. rachovii "KNP Black" 20-48
N. robustus 8-16
N. rubripinnis 12-18

N. spec. "Abrahamu" MW 88/2 16-24
N. spec. "Benga" MW 88/12 16-24
N. spec. "Caprivi" 95/1 12-18
N. spec. "Golomoti" MW 88/3 16-24
N. spec. "Kisaki" 95/5 12-16
N. spec. "KTZ 85/20" 12-16
N. spec. "KTZ 85/23" 14-18
N. spec. "Liwonde" MW 88/6 20-28
N. spec. "Mugeta" TAN 93/17 10-14
N. spec. "Runere" TAN 93/13 14-20
N. spec. "Salima" MW 88/1 16-24
N. steinforti . 12-16
N. symoensi 10-12
N. taeniopygus 12-24
N. vosseleri 14-20

As you can see some like kuhntae and fuzeri are better suited to be Magic fish than the other species and do well in hard water. There might even be some South American annuals better suited.

Fundulopanchax gardneri will only last about a month and a half dry.

I don't know why they used such crappy images on the box. There are more good looking killi species out there. The killies in that video were the ugliest that I've seen and most weren't even killies.

 

Just been on Hellopeter.com (part of the work I do), and you should see the complaints on there about the magic fish - imagine that, first timers not getting the shrimp or the fish to hatch.

Very sad that this is even allowed (and that comes from a Marketer).