Have you ever heard of sea monkeys before?
of course you have. about 60 years ago
There was this huge craze essentially you get this fine little powder
in the mail
Or however you want to buy them you add this powder to a little bit of salt and water
And they hatch into sea monkeys as hobbyists though
We know that these are actually brine shrimp
And we use it as a live food source for our fish especially small or newly hatched fish
This powder which is literally a powder
Is actually the eggs?
Absolutely fascinating isn't it. now what if we could do this with fish. Let me elaborate
What if we can go on the internet choose from over a thousand?
Absolutely beautifully striking fish with all different types of colors which stay relatively small yet grow
Astronomically fast in comparison to their size yet their eggs can be shipped to you in an envelope
Granted I know that that sounds entirely
Futuristic and and maybe even sounds familiar to some of you
But what I'm talking about is something that a fish
That's been commonly available to the aquarium hobby for a very long time and in today's video
I thought I'd tell you a story and introduce you to an absolutely fascinating fish the killifish now a
few months ago
before Frank was put in this aquarium here or before I even put this aquarium there my plans were to actually turn this into a
killifish kind of racking system
So I went online and I ordered about 400 different killifish on ebay nine different varieties
about six weeks later
They showed up, however. They came in the dead of winter during a time that I was gone for about three or four days
So they sat in my mailbox essentially freezing until I got home when I got home
I was a little bit upset
Over the fact that you know my plans for the killifish weren't going to happen so I scrapped the idea
And tossed Frank in this location and gave him this aquarium too many people's excitement
Frank has his own little fan club essentially now running this aquarium gallery has a lot of unique expenses
Especially during the initial setup of the gallery there was a lot of garbage as well as construction materials etc basically
Every few months I need to these massive garbage dumpsters so over the last few days
That's what I've been up to as well as spring cleaning and catching up on yard maintenance
much-needed yard maintenance during cleanup, I realized I
Didn't actually throw out those eggs, and yet I had very little hope for these guys
They were frozen solid for a few days some of them were past. They're hatching dates some haven't arrived yet
I thought why don't I just fill up a little plastic container here with some aquarium water and
See what happens so last night, I started
Unboxing all of these killifish eggs essentially they came in envelopes which is absolutely amazing
I got 400 of them nine different species
It cost me less than
$100 these fish are costing me pennies each for an absolutely beautiful
Fish that stays relatively small and is one of the most rewarding fish in the Hobby to keep
Now I had forgotten what I had ordered yet all of the fish came with labels of what they are
Some general information on them how many eggs are expected hatch dates etc the eggs are packed in
What is a peat and this just incubates the eggs the reason why this works though is the most?
Interesting a lot of fish a lot of killifish our annual killifish some are not annual
But we'll talk about the annual first annual means that these guys only live for about a season
They live in waterways that are eventually going to dry up so in order to ensure their survival
They lay their eggs in the mud that eventually dries up all the water the adults die off
But during the next raining season or flooding those eggs get wet again, and they hatch into new killifish completing the cycle
Unfortunately again, they only live for one year, which is kind of sad
But there are different types of killifish that live for longer than that year, and they're not an annual they are
Fish that are found in
Ponds and other waterways that simply don't evaporate in fact killifish are found in all over the world so I decided
I'm just gonna start dumping all of them into one container
I didn't have very many hopes of any of these hatching just because of what I explained earlier however
I thought if I could just one to hatch it'll make doing this video worth
It simply to introduce you guys to a new fascinating world so like I said
I got nine different species and some of them even came with some starter food some micro worms
But I had already prepared previously by buying some brine shrimp
I was going to hatch my own my own live foods out to feed to the newly hatched fish and of course
I've shown you how to build a brine shrimp hatchery in the past yet having nine different species
I was originally going to set up nine different tanks three on each level, and it sounds like I need tanks
But these Rubbermaid or Sterilite clear containers
It's really all that I need toss a sponge filter in there the rooms already heated
And I'm good to go so these fish still do need
filtration and heating of course now of course adding them
Directly to the aquarium with all that peat does create quite a bit of a mess
But it settles out after a couple of hours and usually within as little as thirty minutes
The fish will literally start to hatch I didn't see that I had to wait several hours
And by the way I decided to do all of this at 1:00 a.m.. This morning
I don't know why I do that to myself. I just my mind gets working at the middle of the night
I'm like I want it
I want a hatch killifish, so that's what I did now the hatching can take up to two days or so
So I'm not overly concerned
With how many I have right now
However, I did start to see a few in the in this bucket
It's just the really hard to spot because they're truly just a very tiny microscopic
Fish and if we look closely at the peak before dumping it in the water
We can sort of see some of the eggs in that peat as well
So now typically what you would do is probably have two or three containers of
Variable sizes one small you could even do this in a little bowl if you wanted to
To hatch them in then you would take a turkey baster put them in a larger tank
Not too big you want it to be easy for them to find the foods you're gonna be offering which you can offer the micro
Worms, you can patch up your own brine shrimp
Which is what I would suggest or you can find some very small grain fry food
and hopefully
Work for you as well
Finally having a larger size for when they become adults and getting to adults eyes only takes a few months with these guys
until they're to breeding size again, they only live for a few seasons, or you know a one-year, that's why they call them annuals
So of course they have to get too sexual breeding maturity relatively fast the thing that fascinates me about killifish
The most is how hands-on?
These fish are yet? They are relatively simple to keep you start off with tiny little eggs, so you get to experience
hatching eggs for the first time if he's never bred fish before
Then of course you get to make your own food for them
You can create a brine shrimp hatchery for example
And that's what I would highly suggest you do then you get to grow them out into adults within a very short
Period of time again be so rewarding you've hatched your fish
You've created the food for them
And you grew them out into an absolutely stunning animal now annual killifish in the aquarium will live probably around two years
So there's no worry about your fish dying in a few months now where can you get some killifish?
You're not gonna be able to walk into your local fish store and find killifish
Usually not maybe you'll find one or two different species
But there is such a variety my suggestion is to buy the eggs online good seller will provide the date
They're ready to hatch some information about them
And maybe even some food like I thought you can get these on places like eBay however my suggestion would be to join a local
Killifish Club, maybe there's some clubs on Facebook or some killifish forums. There's also killifish
associations, I mean if the world of killifish is its own little hobby within a hobby, and I've said that about stingrays and Asian
Arowana in the past, but killifish are kind of their own, niche as well
a massively supportive community out there
I highly suggest you get your killifish eggs from some known breeders and whatnot and don't make the mistake
I did by not being around for several days in the blistering cold when your eggs arrive
Otherwise you're probably not going to get a very good hatch rate now. I don't have much confidence in these guys
I'm not sure how many are going to hatch, but again? It's only been a few hours, and we're already seeing some results
But I think that just the test of their hardiness
and how easy
This can be I literally just scooped some water out of the tank behind me tossed in all of these eggs
And they started to hatch so it's pretty awesome to see again. I no longer really have plans for killifish however.
i think that
Perhaps in the near future. We'll take a more serious attempt at this setup a racking system
Grow their food hatch the eggs etc so if that's something you want to see and you're not subscribed to this channel yet
I highly suggest you do but you're not gonna want to miss that as for these guys again. I don't have high hopes
But I do have a little tiny aquarium in the house that if these guys make it I'll put them in there
but I think
i Just wanted to use this opportunity to introduce you to those that don't know about it a pretty amazing fish