I had a couple of oops but I think I'm good now. 1st when I did my research on the annual killifish I didn't realize that N. Eggersi is not where a beginner should start until after the eggs were ordered. 2nd the eggs came and when the hatch date came I dutifully tested my ph adjusted it, added salt and in a separate container started the fairy shrimp that came with the eggs. 3rd due to a medical issue the eggs were in the water for 5 days and the fairy shrimp didn't hatch, came home from hospital and decided it was time to dry the peat and wait and re-wet in a few weeks. 4th while I was getting everything ready to dry the peat a baby fry hatched after 5 days. 6th remember the fairy shrimp didn't hatch so I fed the fry zoo plankton and smashed up some decap BBS shrimp it ate it cause its not in the water the banana worms got messed up by the post office and won't be here till tom at the earliest. The fry is a little over 32 hrs old is it big enough for my vinegar eels or should I feed it algae and smashed BBS for another day. And when will it be big enough for non decap BBS? Thanks for helping out a newbie to killifish

Just an update, I started the fry on the vinegar eels and some more decap BBS and its doing fine think I will hatch some live BBS for it tomorrow and go from there

I'm fascinated by your care of the one fry. Your determination, despite having to spend some time in a hospital is inspiring.

I too wouldn't recommend N. eggersi as one's first Notho. However some people in the e-mailing lists and forums have, maybe in part because their eggs at mid-70s are supposed to have a two-month incubation period. And they are so darned beautiful!

I'm guessing that you are a pretty experienced and well read aquarist. They probably have a pretty good chance with you.

By the way, did you take the peat moss out and "dry it" until it is lightly wet? It is a really long shot, but if we are short of fry, it is interesting the lengths we will go to try and find another egg. ;)

If you have an airstone or hard airline tubing in the tank/ container with the fry, that might motivate the fry to take the decapsulated bs eggs more. I'm pleased that it does seem to be feeding on them. Fry, especially fry of annuals, seem to feed more willingly if the food item moves and stimulated an attack/feeding response.

However any bs or bs eggs decaying in the water present a threat to the killie fry (all killies, but especially killie fry) because that seems to offer an opportunity for the (often present at non-lethal concentrations) much feared velvet to bloom and then overwhelm the immune systems of fry & killies. I'm kind of a nut about siphoning around fry, though I talk a better game than I play.

If you have a couple of ramshorn snails, put a couple in. (If they wildly multiply you are overfeeding, but the fry will be safer.

If you have enough vinegar eels, maybe exclusively feed them for now. For more on them please sort through http://fins.actwin.com/search.cgi

The Notho fry can probably take newly hatched bbs. I would only hatch a tiny bit at a time. You likely have other fish & it is amazing who will take newly hatched bbs. By the way, starting two cultures a day apart allows for a little bit each day. The newly hatched bbs are at their most nutritious. Day old bbs have used up a lot of their nutritional value (from the yolk sack) with two molts (or instars) and a lot of growth.

Some bbs accounts:
http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200111/msg00239.html
http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200401/msg00009.html
http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200011/msg00888.html
http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200111/msg00866.html

By the way, I cheat & use sifted Daphnia on the occasional fry. The smallest Daphnia (after sieving) go in with fry. They just hang around filtering bacteria out of the water until they get consumed.

Good luck & all the best!

Well we thought that since the fry actually hatched we better take care of it. I did dry out the peat. My 12 yr old comes home from school everyday and the 1st thing she asks is "it is wet season yet" I don't think anyone except annual killifish keepers would understand what she is asking.

I had the fry in a small pint container when it hatched and just moved it today to an ice cream pail with about 2 inches of water and its had java moss with it since it hatched its a week old now. I don't have any ramshorn snails but we breed mystery snails, MTS and I'm trying to breed nerites, so now that the fry is in a big enough bucket I'm gonna add a couple of marble sized mystery snails.

Its been eating decap BBS and marine zoo plankton I was changing its water out daily in the small container but I probably will give it about an every other day water change in the bigger contain. I plan to put more water in the container as it grows. We put a little bit of decap BBS and zoo plankton in the water and then when we notice it is gone we add another tiny bit. With my 12 yrs old and my 19 yr old checking to see if we can raise one little fry it gets fed 5-6 times a day if not more. My 19 yr old makes donuts at 2 in the morning and feeds the fry before she leaves in the morning and then we feed it again at 6 when we get up as long as it has eaten what it had in the water and so on. It is much easier to raise one fry than a whole tank full as we know this one is eating since its the only one in the bucket.

Do you think that it would be ok when it gets big enough to put it in with juvenile guppies of the same size? I want to find some place in the US to get the eggs if I can as I got these from Thailand and they were 13 mths from the hatch date but we are gonna try to hatch at least one more time.

My 12 yr old asked her science teacher Friday if she can bring the peat to school to look under the microscope for eggs and the teacher is going to make a lesson from it and the peat goes to school on Tuesday. So hopefully she will find some eyed up eggs. How long do you think we need to wait to try re-wetting the peat?

Thanks for your help

Forgot to mention I found a brine shrimp hatcher that allows you to mix in the saltwater in one chamber and the BBS hatch and swim up another chamber and out into the freshwater tank. I have two and run them in my baby fry tanks. I like them because they don't all hatch at once, no separating the BBS they do that all on their own and supposedly you can use the same water for 10 days but I change mine out at about 4-6 depends on how nasty it looks, and I will place some eggs in and then 12 hours later some more eggs and I can continuously feed for 4-6 days. Works great, and it doesn't take the fry long to figure out where the BBS come from and we can always tell when it starts hatching because all the fry will line up at the exit and wait for the BBS to start swimming through. With the guppy fry I only run the hatchers about 2 -3 times a month as they can overeat and blow up we have been lucky so far with no exploding fry but the danger is there.

Here is the link to the hatchery if anyone is interested:
http://www.aquacave.com/continuous-hatchn-feeder-91.html

Many non annual killie fry are not nealy as sensitive to velvet as Nothobranchius species. Aphyosemion and Fundulopanchax species(for me at least) seem to swim in the orange goo that was dead brine shrimp in the eggbox. They find a lot of food there and it does not seem to bother them at all. Water changes however are necessary to assure reasonable growth rates. With Nothos the typically high sensitivity to velvet may be good reason to remove dead brine shrimp with more diligence. A little salt in the water is also good to keep down velvet. Use of "decapsulated BS eggs" seemed to promote velvet in my tanks even among adult Aphyosemion and Fundulopanchax species, so I have avoided that food.

Question: are the decap eggs hatchable? Brineshrimpdirect sells some decapsulated eggs which aren't going to have a very good, if any hatch. They maintain the nutritional value is still good. But the price is a lot less than for regulasr bs eggs. Do you have the option of hatching yours?

I've still got a bunch to learn in this area.

Thanks!

As I understand it, decapsulated eggs will not hatch. It is usually a process to salvage some food value from eggs that would otherwise have a very poor hatch rate like some eggs you kept at room temp for a year or two.

It may be true that the commercial decapped eggs don't hatch. but I would check with the manufacturer. I've never tried them.

However, decapping is a method one can use to improve the hatch rate of poor quality eggs. That is, if you have some eggs that give a poor hatch you can decap them yourself, which usually will increase the hatch rate.

Barry

The way I understand it the decapping process removes the shell and kills the embryo so the eggs do not hatch all you need to do is rehydrate the eggs and feed them they are supposed to be as nutritious as the ones that hatch. I only have the decapped eggs because I got them as an extra in an auction I use the eggs that will hatch in my hatchers I only used the decapped ones for this fry as all I have to do is rehydrate them and and feed I was smashing them in the beginning but its big enough to eat them now and is eating the vinegar eel and I am still feed the zooplankton because is seems to eat that the best.