Nothobranchius rachovi from your PM.
The species in question is not from Thailand but rather from around Mozambique, Africa and is a true annual.
You sure have picked a hard member of the Genus to start with. Anyway with that said I will attempt to tell you how to raise this species.
From my own dealings with the species in question N. rachovi Beira 98. I lost quite a few batches of fry in the early days mostly through ignorance and stupidity, nowdays they are a doddle.
OK you will recieve the eggs in peat, on the bag there should be both a spawning date and a prospective hatching date. Rachovi eggs can take anywhere from 4-6 months to hatch as they go through different development stages whilst in the peat (diapause) As I said earlier they are true annuals, meaning that they lay their eggs in the bottom of the pool they are living in, the hot summer sun dries up the pools but the eggs remain viable until the raining season returns. During this time there may be a freak storm and some of the eggs will hatch and the pond will dry out once again, these fish fry will obviously die, but there will still be eggs in the mud, as not all will hatch at the same time which is natures way of preserving the species.
Ok when you get the eggs and have assertained a hatching date (if he's selling them, then I would expect that they are pretty close to hatching, maybe no more than a few weeks). First off I would check the peat for eggs, These will be difficult to spot amongst the peat at first, but should be amberish in colour. You should really get yourself a good magnifying glass from your local chemist or opticians. Looking through this at an egg you should be able to see the developing embryo, now the way I can tell if they are ready to hatch is look at the eye, around the iris (black part) you should be able to see a gold coloured, kind of ring. If that is present then they are ready or at least some will be ready. If you dont see this then I would personally place the peat in a clean fish bag, keep a little bit of air in the bag and tie the opening with a knot. Store in the dark at a nice warm constant temperature (hot press/ airing cupboard wraped in a blanket) anything where it is warm. The inside of the bag will condensate, thats fine. Check again for good signs of development as above in say a fortnight.
Phew!
If the eggs are ripe enough to hatch place you peat in a 1lb white (for visual purposes) ice-cream tub. float this in an aquarium and cover the peat in the tub with about 30mm of tank water of around 75'F. Some of the eggs will hatch almost immediately. The fry are really, really small, you wont believe how small these things are compared to guppy, platy young.
Right get another good size white margarine tub prepared and try to catch the fry using a syringe with a littl piece of airline attached carefully suck up the fry one by one and place in the new tub which incidentally should also contain the same depth of water from the same source.
The fry must be fed immediately. Given the size of these, the food stuff has to be very small indeed newly hatched brineshrimp are too large. Infusoria is the order of the day (see my pinned topic in the killifish section) Place some Salvinia natans or similar in the fry tub this will also provide some natural infusoria and place one drop of liquifry No1 for egglayers in there as well. Keep the fry tub spotlessly clean and add some extra water day by day as you go along (a few mm per day) After 2-3 days the fry can be offered newly hatched brineshrimp and you fears shold be almost over. Cleanliness is paramount with these, remove any uneaten food soon after feeding. Feed the fry 4 times per day, little and often. Also its a good idea to mix a few grains of cooking salt in the water to prevent velvet. Just a few grains mind.
Notho fry grow quickly with regular food and small waterchanges, they have to as their whole lifecycle only lasts 10-15 months.
Now your peat. All the fry that were going to hatch will have hatched in 2-3 days. Take your peat squeese the excess water out and lay it on a piece of kitchen towel. get its consistancy to something like pipe tobacco not too dry and not too wet. Rebag and store this as before for another fortnight. then repeat this process all over again. You may find that you have a higher hatch rate from your second wetting than the first. You can repeat this procedure 3-4 times if you like. I would normally have enough fry after 3.
N. rachovi fry grow quick as I said earlier, you may find you have skewed sex ratios in favour of males or vice versa. (par for the course) seperate the sexes as they become apparent also seperate according to size as Rachovi males are quite aggressive toward on another.
Now N. rachovi will rarely take dried foodstuffs, but I have had them take frozen bloodworm etc in the past. If you can make provisions for giving them live food then do so.
Culture you own (see pinned topic again in killifish section)
Starter cultures available from various sources on the net
Whiteworm, Grindalworm and Microworm. Fruitfly if you like but can be a bit awkward for some people.
I think I've covered just about everything there may be some holes here and there if so don't hesitate to ask if you have any problems.
Regards
BigC.
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