Killifish.....

.....eggs.

After two days of sunset blips I thought I'd have a change. This is a rather grainy slightly out of focus photo of some Killifish eggs that are just about to hatch out. I bought the eggs about five months ago and they have been living in a little plastic pouch of damp peat in a jiffy bag behind my fishtank since.

Killifish have a strange lifecycle, different species are found all over the world in areas that tend to have heavy rains followed by a period of drought. The fish lay their eggs in puddles, streams or lakes which then dry up and the eggs lay in a dormant state for months until the next rains come along triggering the eggs to hatch. once hatched the fish grow to adult size rapidly and are able to reproduce after five weeks or so. A lot of killifish are brightly coloured the eggs shown here are a from a species called Nothobranchius Guentheri.

I've just placed the eggs ( about 30 of them ) along with the peat they have been hibernating in, in to water and hopefully in the next 24 hours they will hatch out.I took this photo using a microscope attachment on my iphone as the eggs are less than a millimeter in diameter. I still had to zoom in a bit with my iphone, so I dont think this photo is going to win any awards. The little golden discs you can see are the eyes of the fry and it's also fairly easy to see their tails wrapped around them. I've just been watching them wriggling around in the eggs for the last half an hour a bit like a scene from aliens.

Here is a link to a video on youtube that shows Killifish in their natural habitat ( a long way away from a jiffy bag behind my fishtank ). As all being well, tommorrow they will be tiny hatched fry, todays blip is .....


..... Killifish eggs.