Least Killies

Well I was lucky enough to scoop one male and one female least killie from a local pond a few months ago. I thought they were juveniles but they must be adults because they didn't grow from what I could see. They are pretty small at about 1/2 inch for the male and just over that for the female.I had them in a tank with other fish and never saw any babies (probably getting eaten).

I was setting up a new 125 gallon in my kids room and figured to use them as cycle fish and to my surprise there are 4 babies swimming around now. Amazingly the female "always" looks pregnant and from what I read they have only one baby at a time but one every few days (kind of like that Duggar lady on TV).


Anyone else keeping varieties of least killie? Have any luck with breeding? How small are your fish?

I have them and have 3 new ones in the past few months

I know the least killie is the smallest live bearer in No America.

You know how insane it looks to have two least killies as the only fish in a 125?
I almost want to leave it like that just for the looks on peoples faces when they see it.

That is funny though!

Itty bitty fish, Great big tank!

That mental image caused a chuckle at this end!.. Bill in Va.

You getting fry from these two still??

How funny!!! Great conversation piece for sure

crw.npt wrote:You getting fry from these two still??

Still getting fry and I have a bunch I just collected last week.

Did you get them out of Lakes Park? Are they pretty easy to get to breed? I'm very interested in these little guy, but I need to get a tank set up.... Soon, i hope.

crw.npt wrote:Did you get them out of Lakes Park? Are they pretty easy to get to breed? I'm very interested in these little guy, but I need to get a tank set up.... Soon, i hope.

Yes, collected at Lakes Park from the grassy edges. They breed very easy and I have found you can't kill them with poor water conditions. I use them to cycle new tanks and when the nitrites are off the chart the fish appear to be fine.

What about feeding? Live food necessary, or will they thrive in flake?

crw.npt wrote:What about feeding? Live food necessary, or will they thrive in flake?

They love flake food, the accept it with no hesitations.

That makes it so much easier. I really want to get some pygmy sunfish, but they require live foods. I don't really have the time for that right now unfortunately. I just want to set up a nice, heavily planted, low-maintenance nano tank and I think least killies might be the way to go. Not the flashiest fish out there, but nice looking none-the-less.

crw.npt wrote: I really want to get some pygmy sunfish, but they require live foods.

That is the next species on my list, I'm pretty sure I know where to find them but the water is too low right now. So far I have no problems with wild fish converting to flake food. If I do find some sunfish and they convert I'll let you know.

Thanks Joe. I'm pretty active on the NANFA forums, and quite a few people are breeding the pygmys over there. None of them are having much luck getting them to convert to flakes or pellets. Some of the captive bred ones will take frozen, but thats about it as far as I've seen. And apparently the fry are so tiny that they are giving them greenwater and tiny daphnia cultures. Seems like way too much work for me right now. Maybe when I win the lottery and can retire at 35.....
On a different note, the smallest centrarchids, like the banded and spotted sunfish will take flakes and prepared foods no worries. They just aren't as neat as the Elassomas. Or tiny for that matter.

And if you have a local spot for Elassomas I'm pretty sure that would be a range extension. Every range map that I've seen for them doesn't have them in our neck of the woods. Not 100% but thats what I've seen so far.