What's the best first killifish ? Any killi that you don't look at and say "that is far too much to pay for a FISH"! And even then (Diapterons come to mind) they're really quite easy - as long as you understand their one sticky point - maximum temperature is 68. Even 4 of these in a bare black painted tank away from bright light is an absolute wonder.

Ok, there probably are some fish that people new to killies probably shouldn't attempt, but then these tend to be terrifically unavailable species that only a handful of the most advanced killi hobbyists have had even a spot of luck with. A. Batesii comes to mind.

But, ots of what are commonly called "beginners killies" are, IMO, not, and lots of "oh, I'd wait a while before you tried those" fish make excellent first killies, although this too depends on the relative skill of the aquarist. I was told many years ago Roloffia occidentalis, A. cameronense and bulanum (properly Aphyosemion (Kathetys) elberti) were FAR from beginners fish and the killi Mafia around here at the time decided they wouldn't get them for me, a disheartening thing to happen to a 17 year old.

A month later, and this must have been 1974 or 1975 I met Tony Terceira and Royal Ingersoll who said that was poppyock, which restored my faith in humanity; I had Roloffia occidentalis in my tanks within a week. NOT a beginners fish?

Nonsense.

So, I'd say given that you're halfway enthusiastic and given that internet resources abound I'd say you can get any darn fish you want as your fist killi.

Now, say we change the question to "what are the killies I'm likely to have the most success with with the least amount of experience or even effort?" then, for me, there is only one answer: bivitattum.

Well, it's not bivittaum any more, it was a while ago but now it's bitaeniatum. There are a few commercial imports of this fish in the hobby right now, almost certainly from Lagos. You might see them listed as "Biv Lagos" or "BIT Lagos" or "Bit CI99/2" ("Commercial import from 99, second one this year")

I love gardneri and australe to death, but I've found them to be vicious little buggers. Gadrneri is I think Latin for "shredded fins" and I have a hard time sneaking australe into the house because the last time they were here they ate the eyes out of my wife's harlequin Rasboras.

E. Dageti are good, they'll reproduce with zero efforts, presuming you have a reasonable number of plants, many of the Epiplatys will thrive and multiply. You'd be hard pressed to notice - what usually happens is one day you see a bunch of half grown fish.

Or, in my case, while cleaning out a tank that had gone blue green algae mad, I pulled out a nice big pair of E. fasciolatus (oh, cool, they're still alive, I haven't been able to see in there for weeks) and found over 100 1" long fry - granted it was a 40 gallon tank.

But, no, bivs still work for me: take a 20 gallon tall, fill it full of hornwort, or java moss or water sprite (or in my case crypts that got replaced by magnificent (!) thread algae) - put a decent light over it, add 6 pairs of fish and feed them for a few months.

Now you have a stable colony.

If you want more fish, keep feeding. They'll multiply. Take the fry out when they're near salable and try to maintain about 30 fish and no more and you'll have a perpetual supply of a very neat fish that doesn't degrade in captivity - that is the succeeding generations look pretty much the same as the wild fish. This is not true for many killies, but seems to hold true for, at least, many of the killies in the biv group.

One week I was away from my tank of bivs like this and of course checked them as soon as I got back (I don't let other people, even aquarists, feed my fish, you'll get more deaths from that than not feeding them) and they did NOT look hungry.

Speculating that they were eating "bugs" in the algae (not the algae itself; Aphyosemion are strict carnivores) I stopped feeding them to see how long they could go. This sounds cruel, but I *was* keeping an eye on them. At any sign of sunken bellies I could always feed them again, heck most fish look worse than then when you receive shipped fish anyway.

So, here's this tank of bivs, looking great, in a brightly lit tank with tons of plant life albeit largely undesirable - certainly to me, plant life with fish that are not being fed.

How long do you think this tank of fish lasted this way? Eighteen months. A year and a half without me adding any food. True their numbers did not increase although fish did seem to come and go, but their numbers never multiplied. I still had a hard time believing they were surviving - 12 fish - on things I couldn't see, but what other explanation is there?

The only reason this arrangement failed after 18 months is because I was away for 3 weeks and the *light* failed, presumably on the first day or nearabouts. They had all perished by my return. Bang, just like that. No lights, no plants, no fish.

But how could this not be the ideal first killi?