Museum Killifish

[GaryE]

Orange spadetails? Boring. How about "Illustrious orange sky acrobats"? Or "Burnt Sienna Specials"? Or "Cirque du Soleil creamsicles"?

I used to keep and breed what were then Rivulus atratus, a colourful small South American plant spawner. I would look in the tank and see no fish, but if I checked the silicone above the water (I kept the tank half filled with a tight lid) the fish would all have stuck themselves to it, and would be chilling out of the water. I've seen that behaviour with a few SA killies.

If you kept them in a tank with a bog set up, a paludarium type thing it would be interesting to see if they'd adopt a semi-amphibious lifestyle in the out of water section.

If you're going to sell fish in North America, they seem to need an English name.

 

[Back in the fold]

Art Leuterman in the AKA wrote an article in the JAKA about his various Rivulus species and described some very interesting land exploits his fish did . Apparently they can cross considerable distances out of water .

 

[Innesfan]

Orange spadetails? Boring.

Truly. Doesn't have the snap of 'Neon Tetra' or the x-rated overtones of 'Cambodian Logsucker' (Ceratogarra cambodgiensis).

 

[anewbie]

Truly. Doesn't have the snap of 'Neon Tetra' or the x-rated overtones of 'Cambodian Logsucker' (Ceratogarra cambodgiensis).

Sometime an ugly fish is more enjoyable than a pretty one but of course having never kept these killi i have no clue. I find my clown killi very pretty but mostly boring - the dario dario with them are a bit more interesting.

 

[GaryE]

I think I can get bored with looking at any fish. Somewhere in the house I have a photo of Epiplatys roloffi, an 8x10 that catches extraordinary colours only a flash would bring out. It was on the door of my fishroom for many years, and then I stopped even noticing it. As a photo, it did nothing. I put it away somewhere as part of my move, and don't know where it is now.

A lot of living fish are like that, if we see them as just ornamental. Even active and weird ones get figured out. But if you try to keep them for generation after generation, then the process has a degree of difficulty. Then, to work with the fish, you have to try to understand it as way more than just pretty. Suddenly, it's millions of years of evolution, if you let your imagination get involved. It comes from a certain habitat. What does that mean? The water, the flow, the plants, the lighting - all may have to be adjusted for it, and aren't just for you. Research, imagination - a fish. It starts to work differently.

It stops laying eggs. Is it inbreeding? The wrong diet? The water needing adjustment? You solve it, and young are all one sex. You try to adjust to keep them going. Is it temperature? pH? Mineral content? Diet? Aggression? Bad luck? You work on that too.

Killies are ideal for that sort of 'brains on' keeping, as they resist inbreeding and generally don't produce overwhelming numbers. They don't need heaters or fancy, expensive equipment. They're pretty, but the way they are pretty carries messages about their history. They're variable within species, and it's interesting to see if they stay the same every generation.

But while I like Epiplatys annulatus and have some I plan to breed for a local pet shop and for beginner killie keepers, they are one of the easiest, and least intriguing ones.

 

[Back in the fold]

But while I like Epiplatys annulatus and have some I plan to breed for a local pet shop and for beginner killie keepers, they are one of the easiest, and least intriguing ones.

Did I not get the memo or did I miss a meeting ? I thought it was Pseudepiplatys .

 

[GaryE]

Ah, the name game. 100 years ago, they were Haplochilus, then Pseudepiplatys. I think that was based on their size, which is radically different from some of the often way larger (12 cm sometimes) Epiplatys of their region. DNA work put them back into Epiplatys, not that the fish care. That kind of thing has happened a lot, as our ability to work with DNA is recent enough that a lot of the old "eye tests" are failing to stand up.

Right now, the major sources on killifish studies are going with Epiplatys annulatus, and I trust their logic. I'm just an old ape with no scientific training trying to understand biodversity. As fishkeepers, we need to get the idea of species, but where one species ends and another begins, and how we try to make sense of the connections is ongoing. The AKA and the European clubs include people who work hard at this. If they find some new info, then I'll try to read the memo and get the sense of it, but til then, this fish is back to being an Epiplatys. Less typing, too.

On a side note, I wish other Epiplatys were easier to find in the hobby. These miniature pikes are neat fish to keep, but they're really out of fashion.