How I raised killies after a fruitless year of trying

by Bob Krampetz 
First published in The Fish Flash, Greater Portland Aquarium Society, July 2004
Aquarticles

First, you will need lots of small tanks or bowls and some spawning mops for every pair of killies you get. Mops are made of yarn and corks. You can drink lots of wine and get lots of corks.

Trade the spawning mops out every 10 - 14 days and put them in an empty tank of water. Place new mops in their tanks. Get disappointed that nothing shows up. Continue this for months until you're almost ready to give up on killies.

Write to the killie email list, discover better methods from the other killie keepers. (they're good people)

Drink more wine, get more corks, make more mops. Begin a regimen of not only swapping the mops but also checking the mops for eggs and place those you find in a separate container for hatching. Watch all the eggs fungus.

Again write to the killie email list, learn some other new methods from those killie keepers that claim they have no problems raising these impossible fish.

Start moving the pairs of killies to new tanks and watch the vacated tanks for signs of life. Watch for eggs and watch them fungus. Swap more mops, drink lots more wine and get lots more corks to make more mops 'cause those damn corks are sinking to the bottom.

Cuss at the water after three weeks and nothing appears. Note that the new corks are also beginning to sink. Switch to martinis, 'cause you have enough corks and you don't really care for that two buck chuck!

Write to them lying SOB killie keepers again, don't send the first email - rewrite it until it sounds civil.

Learn more "tricks" (HA!) Fatten your killies on lots of live food, get frustrated that they eat all, get fat, and nothing results except those fruit flies that all flew out of the last culture you made! Wife complains about flies in the kitchen. Put your innocent look on, and shrug your shoulders then have a double martini before swapping and checking mops and peering in empty tanks for fry, and all those fungused eggs.

Look at the calendar and realize that 12 months have passed with no killie fry. Threaten them all to no avail, killies don't hear you, but the kids do and the wife doesn't like that language around them.

Prepare to sell them (the killies, not the wife & kids), move all those fish from their individual space-taking tanks to one large 15 gal tank before bagging them up.

Wait a week, have a beer & relax (that wine & gin was making you crazy!) - no more frustrating killies.

Examine the now empty 15 gal tank ...

Killie Fry ....

ARRGGhh