Golden Panchax Killifish

Question
About a month ago I went out and bought 2 swordtails (1 male and 1 female) and when i got home i noticed that there was a third fish in the bag with them. I didnt know at the time what the fish was but i put it in the tank anyways as it was in the same tank with the swordtails to begin with. I went back to the store (Wal-Mart) where i bought them and looked at the tags a found out what the beautiful green fish was I found out it was a Golden Panchax Killifish. It was a hand written tag so there wasnt any information about the fish on it. So my Question is how big does a gold panchax killifish get and how do you tell the males from the females? I fear that the fish is going to out grow the 5.5 gallon tank i have. i plan on getting a larger tank in the future but not for a long while yet.

Answer
Dear Lessien,
What a surprise you got with your swordtails!
Golden Killifish are really great aquarium fish. The males are a beautiful greenish/yellow/gold florescent fish and the females tend to be slightly duller with bands across their sides. These are big-time mini-predators with the mouth, stealth as well as speed to catch smaller fish. He shouldn't bother your swordtails, but any fry the female has will certainly be long gone.

Golden Panchax mature at around 3 1/2-4 inches. They take some time to acchieve that size, but otherwise they shouldn't be in anything smaller than a 10gallon ideally. Try to upgrade as soon as possible. A 20-gallon and up is even better for these fish.

Golden panchax will eat all aquarium foods. Flakes, small pellets, as well as freeze-dried and frozen foods of any kind, as long as it's bite-sized. They are voracious eaters, mine even swallowed a whole green pea that was meant for the ottocinclus catfish also living in the tank with him.
These beauties look their best in a planted aquarium. The bright green background of plants really shows off their colors well. And these killifish enjoy plants, especially floating ones as hiding places for lounging. But they aren't really that shy of a fish. They will come out to the front eagerly when you approach the tank (and after they've had time to get use to you) and be careful when feeding them, they can easily jump out of the tank in their eagerness to be fed. Which also brings up the dangerous hobby these fish seem to enjoy of leaping out of any small holes in the aquarium cover. Mine has jumped out of his tank so many times I have lost count. They seem to do it a lot when the tank lights and room lights are out. You don't want your killifish to come to such a sad fate so be sure to do what I did with my Golden Panchax tank and cover any holes in the aquarium hood. Especially those that are around the filter. I use fine white plastic mesh you can find at the hobby sections of most stores like wal-mart usually.

They are quite hardy fish with no specific water requirements except that the water should be warm and clean with plenty of frequent partial water changes.

Best of luck with your new Swordtails and Golden Panchax!
Karen~