Sexing gardneri killifish

[lake_tuna]

I just bought 2 gardneri killifish thinking that I got a pair of a male and a female. I'm looking at photos of them on the Internet, and I'm not sure if I have a female here. The LFS had 4 of these fish, and I picked the most colorful and the least colorful ones. Here are the pictures. What do you guys think? Females in the pictures I see are awfully pale-colored.

One other thing: I have a pair of clown killifish in my community tank. Does anyone know if they are all safe in there?

Definitely a male:

Is this a female?

 

[fishorama]

My female, if I can recall correctly, didn't show yellow on the tail & dorsal like yours. I suspect 2 males

 

[lake_tuna]

Oh gosh, I think you're right. All of the photos and videos I can find on the web shows the female completely lacking of colors on the fins. The LFS had 4 males in the same tank, then?? I'll have to go return one if they're both males..

 

[kevinb120]

Yup, take one back, it will be trouble(my avatar's main squeeze).

Here's a female:

 

[lake_tuna]

Yup, take one back, it will be trouble(my avatar's main squeeze).

Does your killi do well in a community tank? I put them in my community tank listed in my sig for a little to just observe them, and the bright male behaved like a shark. It really slowly swam around headbutting my celestial danio and scaring my dario darios. Will he chill off eventually? I have both of them in a 2.5g for the time being, and I'll take one back tomorrow.

 

[kevinb120]

I've had 3 over time, no issues with any, even had one with a betta (he took the leap of faith out of the tank though ). Mine have been no trouble at all. If they wanted to, they could be monsters I'm sure. They are lightning fast, have large mouths, and 'stalk'. Being that the female is just as quick, if they don't wan't to 'loose' something in the tank, it isn't getting away. As long as the fish is too large for him to eat it, he should be fine. He is the most peaceful fish, one time I added a small otto though and man did he go into stalker mode immediately, after trying to fit him in his mouth(it wouldn't), he went right back to bee-boppin around. Otto's been fine too. The female is smaller, so if the male wont try to eat it, she definitely wont. Good luck with any very small fish or fry though. Still not as bad as a golden wonder, who gets nearly double the gardneri's size, they can gobble up full grown guppies.

The dario dario may look enough like another killi though it may cause issues, they actually look like other species of killifish.

The most malicious he gets is prodding resting cory cats back into play, apparently for the entertainment value. They are very curious and intelligent. However, with another male in the tank, all bets are off. At the LFS, they usually have 5+ in one tank, but one on one is bad news. You'd be surprised how big a chunk of algae wafer then can stuff in their mouths(whole head swells up). And they are good at stealing them from other fish. They are kinda like aqua-ferrets.

 

[lake_tuna]

hm.. I should try to put him back to my community tank. I returned the second one pictured above. What gardneri variation is this, Kevin? Mine looks like yours, it seems.. some kind of albino?

 

[kevinb120]

It's probably the same as mine, I tried to find out exactly what color variation is what, but apparently, the 'killi community' has about 1,234,567,234,907 nomenclatures for gardneri killifish He may just be young, mine keeps getting brighter and brighter colors as he ages. I had a 'golden' gardneri once that was literally bright yellow with the magenta markings, still just consider it a gardneri killi. I would think it just comes down to the individual fish as to temperament. They are very curious and somewhat fearless, so just watch him closely to see if he's just checking out the other tankmates rather then doing any kind of actual harm. Mine gives a thorough checkout to every new inhabitant, but never tries to bully anybody. They are pretty much considered peaceful across the board from every source I have ever read.

Here's that picture larger, (although photobucket is choked tonight)

 

[lake_tuna]

Haha, you're right. It seems that there are so many variations! It seems that Aquabid has these for sale at reasonable prices.. but if I got a slightly different gardneri, how will the offsprings look? Because honestly, I also have no idea what my variation is.

 

[lake_tuna]

Oh man, I'm keeping this gardneri in a 2.5 gallon for the moment, and I tested out how he would behave with 2 cardinal tetras, which are the 2 largest fish I have in the community tank. After about 24 hours, I found that the cardinals were all beat up missing bits and chunks of their fins!! I immediately put the cardinals back in the community tank now. I guess the gardneri was a bit short of space in the 2.5g, but this doesn't help me decide if I should keep him with the rest of the fish!