Annuals? Why?

[MeganL3985]

I've been doing some research lately on some killies and a lot of them, i've noticed, are called "annuals" and only live a few months or are "seasonal" so to speak. Is this common with most of them or only a select few? They're such beautiful fish, its depressing to see that they're so short lived. :41:

[cocoa_pleco]

i had my golden wonders for a long time, theyre really cool fish. I had mine trained on crickets. When i had my 55g planted, the whole top of the tank was loaded with cabomba, and the killies loved weaving around

[MeganL3985]

How long is a long time and are those considered "annuals"? I saw those at walmart and petsmart recently....which suprised me, b/c killies are rare around this "neck of the woods". lol

[Mvjnz]

Annuals live from 6 to 12 months, while there are some species which live up to a few years, 2 to 3 I'd say.

They are not usually very hard to breed, at least not the common types, so you could just keep breeding them to replace them as they die off. That's what I'm doing.

[toddnbecka]

They're like brine shrimp, evolved to live in seasonal pools of water. When the rains fill the pools, the eggs hatch. When the pools dry out again, the next generation is waiting in the mud.

[jules]

Annuals are short lived, but because of this they go from egg to adult really quickly - like 3 weeks or so. So you can have a bag of eggs, and hatch them, grow them and re-breed them in a month. These 'young' adults look great, are still small (so you can have a tank of them) and sell easily, leaving you a bag of eggs that you can rehatch at your leisure. Yes it is more work than your average guppy, but worth it in my opinion, the fish (Nothobranchius (http://www.killi.co.uk/nothobranchius/) in particular) are just the best looking small freshwater fish there are.

The reason you see so many for sale is the ease with which the eggs can be posted around the world. Non-annual killies are probably less hassle to breed, but more hassle to sell eggs of (they are more delicate, need to be kept in water, and hatch when they are ready, and no later)

[MeganL3985]

Wow, thanks Jules :)