# Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilichthys sp.Akala)



## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

Hi everyone,
I'm hoping some of you out there can help me out.

I have some Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala coming next week and while I've raised a few killies, I've never kept or bred any Lampeyes before. I've had some advise from different places and done a number of searches, but the advice is pretty diverse!

Have any of you out there kept Lampeyes? If so did you breed them and how? What about raising the babies. I've been told they should probably take brine shrimp straight away, but not sure this is true. What about water parameters too? At the moment the idea seems to be neutral to slightly acidic water and plenty of current once they get going.

If any of you have kept the Akala Lampeye I'd love to hear how you got on as I can't find any experiences!

Cheers,
Ed.


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*

Well they arrived. All the way from Hawaii and they nearly didn't make it thanks to the incompetence of someone at this end who copied the postcode down incorrectly to go on the documentation in this country! They were 9 days in the post and I assumed they were dead, but on opening the polybox and looking inside I found two breather bags with good eggs inside, then I spotted movement and found there were fry swimming around!

After carefully putting them into a container and adding new water I found 11 fry that had hatched during transport and all 22 hatched by the next morning! Amazing that they survived. Killis never cease to amaze me!

Still after any more advice/experiences with lampeyes if anyone has them...


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## Jessie (Apr 23, 2007)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*

While I have no experience to contribute, I must say, that's quite amazing that you got FRY from a near failed shipment!

I wish you luck! Maybe some dapnia for those little mouths?


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*

I've kept normani lampeyes for a number of years, they's similar enough to what you have the care is the same.

Here's what you do: nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even feed them.

Let me explain. Mine were in a 40 gal long tank stuffed with plants. I noticed they kept eating something - all the time. So I stopped feeding them to see if they were really eating. A year later Their numbers had gone up and I still hadn't fed them. Every now and again I'd throw them a bunch of white worms and about 3 weeks later their numbers would nearly double.

As an experient I took them all out for a month. There were all manner of weird bugs in the tank, very very small but now visible. That's what thet've been eating.

These things make guppies look hard to breed and feed.

They will eat anything you throw at them. They like lots of swimming space. With enough plants and even a modocum of food they'll increase their numbers in no time.

I mean come on, they bred in the bag in the mail for 9 days?

The tank they're in is here:

http://images.aquaria.net/tanks/rjs/40L/

Pics of the actual fish are here:

http://images.killi.net/n/NOR/

ALso in the tank were ammano shrimp, wood shrimp, nerite snails and for a while some Aplocheilus panchax, but I figured they were eating the lampeyes so I took them out. They may have been getting a couple, but frankly not many.

I stated with about 8 and ended up with about 60.

Sadly they all froze to death last February when I was away and the heat failed. I still haven't decied what to replace them with, I'm thinking maybe Procatopus or Plataplochelius.

Or blue gularis.

Like I said, I really haven't decided.

One more thing: google doesn't know what Apl. sp Akala is. You got a pic? Are they "true" aplocheilicthys ias in spilauchen or are they the small lampeyes which are more correctly Poropanchax.

If they came from Hawaii I have a pretty good idea who they came from


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*

They came from Charles in Honolulu.

They just hatched out of their eggs in the bag, but I was amazed they'd survived nonetheless!

Yeah Google is less than helpful! The best I can do is Chuck's auction, with picture, from Aquabid; http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwkillifishe&1184547906
I have been told that they may actually be a Rhexipanchax species rather than Aplocheilichthys (I did also spell that incorrectly in the thread title! ) Although the only Rhexipanchax info I can find is that from Tim Addis's site, http://www.killifish.f9.co.uk/Killi.../Ref_Library/Rhexipanchax/Rhex.nimbaensis.htm and that isn't very detailed!

At the minute they are in a small tub with some aeration to provide a current and I'm giving them microworms and BBS and they seem to be doing well. They water is soft and just on the acidic side of neutral. I'm doing twice daily water changes too with water from a large tank. When they grow they will probably end up in my 12" cube for a while and then move onto a larger tank when they reach adult size.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*

My water is liquid rock. And that never stopped them from breeding. Frankly I'd be more worried about foul water from a small containter than worrying about them in a tank. If the tank is well established ans has floating plants you could just dump them in there and not even worry about feeding them - their diet is primarily pelagic microorganisms unlike all other killies that eat insects and worms.

Aplocheilichtys got split up which probably made sense. A. spilauchen was a big fish and really bore no resmblance to the smaller members of the genus.

My uneducated guess is that these are a Poropanchax though, not a Rhexipanchax.

Very cool fish. And now they're that much closer to me than Hawai'i. Bonus. Hint hint.


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*



rs79 said:


> My water is liquid rock. And that never stopped them from breeding. Frankly I'd be more worried about foul water from a small containter than worrying about them in a tank. If the tank is well established ans has floating plants you could just dump them in there and not even worry about feeding them - their diet is primarily pelagic microorganisms unlike all other killies that eat insects and worms.
> 
> Aplocheilichtys got split up which probably made sense. A. spilauchen was a big fish and really bore no resmblance to the smaller members of the genus.
> 
> ...


Is Nottingham in the UK closer to you than Hawaii? Didn't think there was much in it! But as you were one of the 2 people to respond on here, and been such a help with your advice, you will be more than welcome to some eggs when they get breeding. I'll let you know when they do. Might be a while though...

I use RO water in all my tanks as the tap water here is c***. It's high in Nitrate and phosphate as well as TDS. With RO I just find everything is so much easier. So soft water is almost easier for me than hard water! They seem to be thriving anyway. I lost one fry, but that was one that had hatched in the bag and it, and another one, have always looked a little shaky, thinner and darker. The other seems to be hanging on ok and may make it.

I've moved them to a larger container today as they are swimming better, but they still don't seem big enough to take Brine shrimp. Enjoying the microworms though.

I'm leaning towards them being a Lacustricola. It's only comparing Chuck's pisture with this one on Tim's site though. http://www.killifish.f9.co.uk/Killifish/Killifish%20Website/Ref_Library/Lacustricola/Lac.camerunensis.htm What do you think?


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*

Yeah, Hawai' is actually a pretty long way away, a 4 or 5 hour flight from Los Angeles and LA is a 4 or 5 hour flight from here. I can be in the UK in 4 hours. Go figure.

What genus they fall into ? One would have to dig up the paper that split up Aplocheilichthys and figure out what the meristic diagnostics are. But I'm sure somebody is working on this already, while nature abhors a vacuum, the fish world abhors an unnamed fish.

Nitrate and phospahtes out of the tap are a problem? Just add potassium and iron+trace and you save on fertilizer.

I used to have all sorts of problems because of the high iron here (3ppm unchelated, 3ppm chelated) until I just added enough macronutrients to compensate and now things grow like crazy.

I can't emphasize enough how well these things doo with a tank so full of plants it's almost nor pretty. If nothing else a lot of water letture (which dwarfs really well in tanks) provide a good nitrate/ammonia/phosphate sink and these guys (or normani anyway) like to lay eggs there and provide the fry with hiding places from other fish.

Water lettuce:

http://images.aquaria.net/plants/floating/Pistia/

Hmm... I've got better pictures than that. Lemme see if I can find them.


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

*Re: Advice on Lampeyes (Aplocheilicthys sp.Akala)*

Only two of my tanks are in any way high tech really. Most of them are simply fish tanks with lots of plants in!
I found that a number of species, especially wild dwarf cichlids, never really thrived in my tap water. Put them in RO water and they breed like rabbits usually! My cardinal tetras spawned too so now I have a shoal of 40+.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

If you've bred cardinals I wouldn't worry about these then!

My bet would be the lampeyes can handle any hard or soft water equally well.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

This fish was described recently by Huber as Procatopus websteri.


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

Thanks RS, I'd heard that and am looking for the publication where it was described. Any ideas?

Unfortunately I've suffered a bit of a nightmare as a lot fo the fry have died. Not sure why as the other fry in there are fine, it's just the Akalas that have died. The survivors seem fine now.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

It's in the current TFH. How big of a container were they in? Did you have snails in there?


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