Angel free swimmers

[Aron]

So I have angel fish fry now which are roughly a day or two off free swimming. I have a BBS hatchery ready, etc.

I am planning on leaving the fry with the parents this time due to space issues in other tanks (which will be sorted in a month or so). As I usually split the fry from the parents I have no idea what to expect next. I need to leave the fry in for that period until I sell off the other fry and make space in my grow out tank.

My question is I have heard the fry will eat of the skin of the parents and possibly kill them, how likely is that? And also, when the arenas lay more eggs... Due end of this week.... Will she just eat the eggs or will she eat the old fry, I'm unclear on this but I'm sure she won't raise separate batches at same time.

Thanks

 

[Andy Sager]

So I have angel fish fry now which are roughly a day or two off free swimming. I have a BBS hatchery ready, etc.

I am planning on leaving the fry with the parents this time due to space issues in other tanks (which will be sorted in a month or so). As I usually split the fry from the parents I have no idea what to expect next. I need to leave the fry in for that period until I sell off the other fry and make space in my grow out tank.

My question is I have heard the fry will eat of the skin of the parents and possibly kill them, how likely is that? And also, when the arenas lay more eggs... Due end of this week.... Will she just eat the eggs or will she eat the old fry, I'm unclear on this but I'm sure she won't raise separate batches at same time.

Thanks

When breeding Angels, if the pair is working a batch of fry, they don't usually breed again until the fry are gone. What happens is when the fry are big enough, the pair trys to encourage them to leave the area so they can spawn again.
As for the fry picking at the skin of the parents, I've never seen that but I believe Altum Angels might feed their fry from the slime coat as a Discus does. I don't recall as I always artificially hatched out my Angels and my Altums only bred once (unsuccessfully.)

If you can get the fry eating baby brine shrimp, you should have no problems keeping them with the parents for now. But you better start soon. They should already be eating them by now based on your timeline.

Hope this helps

 

[Aron]

Thanks, that has relaxed me a little. I have been feeding them brine shrimp (24 hours after adding the eggs to the solution) and I have been adding spirulina to the solution to ensure that the BBS are still nutritious.

I'm not sure that the fry are eating the BBS though, I watch the BBS wiggle through the water between the cloud of fry and not get eaten or even pecked at. The fry are tiny. I have tried a few different methods of feeding them but I am worried they aren't eating. Is spirulina powder ok to feed the fry?

 

[Andy Sager]

feeding fry

Thanks, that has relaxed me a little. I have been feeding them brine shrimp (24 hours after adding the eggs to the solution) and I have been adding spirulina to the solution to ensure that the BBS are still nutritious.

I'm not sure that the fry are eating the BBS though, I watch the BBS wiggle through the water between the cloud of fry and not get eaten or even pecked at. The fry are tiny. I have tried a few different methods of feeding them but I am worried they aren't eating. Is spirulina powder ok to feed the fry?

You should be able to use a lght and see the orange bellies in the fry if they are eating the BBS. If not, you need to feed either infusoria or microworms as a first food. Angels are NOT vegitarians so spirulina powder will not be eaten either. They need MEAT. And the movement of that meat should intice them to feed.

I've been told by a current breeder that all those years of inbreeding angels has produced smaller fry in some of the more exotic varieties so they need to start on infusoria first opposed to when I did it with just BBS as a first food. If these are young ot first time breeders, the eggs are going to be smaller and the fry smaller as well. As a fish gets older, the eggs get larger and so do the fry (which is why I don't recommend breeding younger fish. Let them grow to a nice large size to make it easier on the hobbyist.)

Hope this helps

 

[Aron]

Some good info there thanks. I am hatching a new batch of BBS now ready for tomorrow and in the mean time I have been trying to feed them frozen cyclops (the smallest thing my LFS had) and I have bought some liquifry no2 for egg layers and started adding some drops to stimulate infusoria growth. I haven't heard many reports about this liquifry stuff so am not too hopeful!?

 

[Andy Sager]

Some good info there thanks. I am hatching a new batch of BBS now ready for tomorrow and in the mean time I have been trying to feed them frozen cyclops (the smallest thing my LFS had) and I have bought some liquifry no2 for egg layers and started adding some drops to stimulate infusoria growth. I haven't heard many reports about this liquifry stuff so am not too hopeful!?

You might want to speed up your feeding of the bbs. I try to use it within 6 hours of it's hatching. Any time after that the shrimp are just growing and more difficult for the fry to eat. I set up 3 bowls for hatching and stagger the times I add the eggs so each feeding is as close to newly hatched as possible. You don't gain anything by pre hatching your brine shrimp until the fish are much older (but by then, they are eating either a powdered food or frozen baby brine shrimp.)
Liqufry used to be an OK substitute for egg yolk but when I used it, I only used it for the first day or 2 of the free swimming stage. By then , the fry would be eating"newly hatched" bbs.
For the future, you may want to get an infusoria culture going so that you can offer the fry both infusoria and BBS. Once created, the infusoria culture can be kept indefinetly with a little care.

Keep us posted

 

[Aron]

What I should have said was I have just added the eggs to salt solution today and they should be hatched ready for tomorrow. I will use them up over two or three feeds tomorrow and start a new second bottle ready for Sunday's feeds. I will continue to use the liquifry stuff as well and look into starting an infusoria culture also. Thanks

 

[Andy Sager]

What I should have said was I have just added the eggs to salt solution today and they should be hatched ready for tomorrow. I will use them up over two or three feeds tomorrow and start a new second bottle ready for Sunday's feeds. I will continue to use the liquifry stuff as well and look into starting an infusoria culture also. Thanks

I understand.
What I was saying is that you should set up 2 or 3 bottles for your bbs. One bottle is only for morning feeding , one mid day and one nightime. This way, all the feedings are with shrimp less than 6 hours old. You use the same amount of eggs just separated into each bottle. Your way, your nightime feeding is with shrimp that have been growing for close to 12 extra hours. That could be part of your situation. Just a thought

 

[Aron]

Hey Andy, I had some success with the brine shrimp in the end with multiple bottles like you said, so thanks, got about 30-40 nice big fry!

I would like to know what you would do in my situation now though because, as mentioned in my first post this thread, the parents have laid again (see pic!) I don't want them to chase off or kill the older fry they have but I thought the babies would snack on the eggs? The male followed and fertilised too and at the minute they aren't bothering their older fry.

 

[Andy Sager]

Congrats on the fry....

Hey Andy, I had some success with the brine shrimp in the end with multiple bottles like you said, so thanks, got about 30-40 nice big fry!

I would like to know what you would do in my situation now though because, as mentioned in my first post this thread, the parents have laid again (see pic!) I don't want them to chase off or kill the older fry they have but I thought the babies would snack on the eggs? The male followed and fertilised too and at the minute they aren't bothering their older fry.

View attachment 99533

Glad to have helped. As you go along, (and the fish get older) you should start to have larger spawns with more mouths to feed so you should start getting some extra tanks prepared if I were you

From the picture, it looks like the tank is filled with plants and decore so the older fry should have places to hide from the parents (for now.) The problems I've faced in the past come when the new spawn hatches while in the presence of the old spawn. At 3 weeks old (if I did my math right that's about how old your older fry are now) they are probably not large enough to eat the eggs and the parents will be guarding the eggs so that's not really the problem. The problem is going to be when the new fry need to be fed BBS and the older fry are there and going to be more aggressive feeders.
By the calendar, the fry are probably too young to be moving yet into brand new water (IMO: just to make everyone here happy ) but if you can gently siphon them into another tank with the water they are currently in, I would be doing that in about a week (or before the new fry are free swimming). By that time the new spawn should have hatched. Replace the water in the breeding tank at no more than about 10%-15% of the current volume daily (or every 2 days)so as not to stress the new babies. (For example: if there is 10 gals of water in the the tank after you've siphoned out the babies, add back 1 gal of water daily, etc.)

If you are unable to do this, you may want to get a tank divider and separate the fry from the new spawn until they should be moved into a growout tank (in about 3 weeks.) I usually moved my fry for the first time at 42 - 60 days depending on when the parents spawned again (and I needed the tank space.)

For what it's worth, one of the reasons breeders use bare tanks to breed Angels or to hatch out Angel Eggs is so that the fry food doesn't have a place to hide and the fry don't have to try real hard to find the food. This usually resulted in a higher survival rate of more fry. Also, Angels can breed quite frequently so you can easily have an overcrowding problem if you don't have enough tanks. Crowding the fish causes them to grow slower but the parents will keep breeding on their schedule causing more overcrowding down the road causing even slower growth, etc. (You get my point LOL) This was why I used a 3 tank system for each pair of fish and artificially hatched out the eggs. Every spawn was separated and by the time the 3rd spawn happened, the first spawn was ready to be moved to the grow out tanks or vats thereby giving me an empty tank to use again. Depending on what you intend on doing with all these fish, you may need to sacrifice some spawns in order to raise what you already have in a reasonable amount of time (if you don't intend on selling them off) or increase your tank numbers so you have the space to accomodate the fish you will be producing.

That's how I would handle it