Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
So you do Paypal......Hmmm....Maybe we need to set up an account. LOL
Where to start? Let's go the easy way.....feeding. I feed my breeder fish the following. In the a.m., I feed Omega one Freshwater Tropical fish flakes. In the afternoon, I feed freeze dried Tubifex worms. In the evening, I feed frozen brine shrimp. I add Acurel vitamins occasionally directly to the tanks. In the past, I kept a feeder cone of live tubifex worms in every breeder tank but they have become harder to come by where I am at so I switched to F.D. The reason I do this in this order is so that IF the FD worms become constipating, the brine shrimp is mainly roughage so it cleans the fish out. It must be working cause the tanks have a load of fish crap in them! I've never heard of the foods you mentioned but that doesn't mean they are bad. You basically want higher protein foods with at least 1 feeding of intestinal cleaning foods. High protein for all 3 meals can lead to a problem. Think of it like you eating steak every meal and never having a salad. At some point, you will be backed up. If you don;t like the brine shrimp idea, try Daphnia...same thing for roughage.
Yes, medicated foods can have effects on the eggs. If you are feeding a medicated food, you may not need to run any experiments cause that's most likely your problem. Back in the 80s when my hatchery got the first round of Angelfish AIDS, it took a lot of medications to finally find one that would save the fish but the result was that the fish were sterile for more than 6 months. My partner had kept one pair we had saved and he did get viable fry again but it was only after a looooooooooooooooooong time of good clean living.
Now to the experiment: If you don;t have distilled, you can try the snow ( do I need to tell you to melt it and heat it before using it?) or the spring water or the Betta water. (Just not YOUR water.) Don't be concerned yet with the KH and GH but try to use whichever water is closest to the readings of your breeder's tankwater. Just make sure the PH is on the acidic side. Try not to have too much of a difference tho. In my case, the eggs went from 6.5 tank water to 6.0 rain water. The more acidic, the longer it takes for the eggshells to harden.
Carbon, never had a problem with Hole in the Head due to carbon. I've kept many a display tank with Angels and carbon in the filter without ever having HIH disease. (I've been told that it's more a dietary and environmental difficiency that brings this on. I keep good tanks, What can I say ) I don;t usually use it on my breeders but that's because I use sponge filters. It's only recently that I found a carbon filled cartridge that I could adapt to my sponge filter's tube that I am using it in the fry tanks. Guess we'll have to see.
The water choices: for now, use the distilled from the shelf. It will be 0 GH and KH which is what we are after at the moment. You can substitute the spring water if it has a GH of less than 3 drops.
Okay, let's see, that's about 10 years worth of information......$12K/ year salary I earned during those 10 years ( I was very young when I learned this stuff.)....... Add the time it took to read your post at my current salary base.........carry the 2........... add the 5..........OKAY, your total for this help is..............Just sign a blank check and I'll fill in the number
BTW: You could have been nice and kept that cold weather up your way!!! I had to wrap each tank in styrofoam cause we are going below freezing tonight and my tanks are outside And to top it all off, I had a new pair of fish spawn while I was wrapping the tanks. Had to wait till they were done to pull the eggs. It's the male's first spawn but the female's 5th or 6th so who knows what will come of it?
Where to start? Let's go the easy way.....feeding. I feed my breeder fish the following. In the a.m., I feed Omega one Freshwater Tropical fish flakes. In the afternoon, I feed freeze dried Tubifex worms. In the evening, I feed frozen brine shrimp. I add Acurel vitamins occasionally directly to the tanks. In the past, I kept a feeder cone of live tubifex worms in every breeder tank but they have become harder to come by where I am at so I switched to F.D. The reason I do this in this order is so that IF the FD worms become constipating, the brine shrimp is mainly roughage so it cleans the fish out. It must be working cause the tanks have a load of fish crap in them! I've never heard of the foods you mentioned but that doesn't mean they are bad. You basically want higher protein foods with at least 1 feeding of intestinal cleaning foods. High protein for all 3 meals can lead to a problem. Think of it like you eating steak every meal and never having a salad. At some point, you will be backed up. If you don;t like the brine shrimp idea, try Daphnia...same thing for roughage.
Yes, medicated foods can have effects on the eggs. If you are feeding a medicated food, you may not need to run any experiments cause that's most likely your problem. Back in the 80s when my hatchery got the first round of Angelfish AIDS, it took a lot of medications to finally find one that would save the fish but the result was that the fish were sterile for more than 6 months. My partner had kept one pair we had saved and he did get viable fry again but it was only after a looooooooooooooooooong time of good clean living.
Now to the experiment: If you don;t have distilled, you can try the snow ( do I need to tell you to melt it and heat it before using it?) or the spring water or the Betta water. (Just not YOUR water.) Don't be concerned yet with the KH and GH but try to use whichever water is closest to the readings of your breeder's tankwater. Just make sure the PH is on the acidic side. Try not to have too much of a difference tho. In my case, the eggs went from 6.5 tank water to 6.0 rain water. The more acidic, the longer it takes for the eggshells to harden.
Carbon, never had a problem with Hole in the Head due to carbon. I've kept many a display tank with Angels and carbon in the filter without ever having HIH disease. (I've been told that it's more a dietary and environmental difficiency that brings this on. I keep good tanks, What can I say ) I don;t usually use it on my breeders but that's because I use sponge filters. It's only recently that I found a carbon filled cartridge that I could adapt to my sponge filter's tube that I am using it in the fry tanks. Guess we'll have to see.
The water choices: for now, use the distilled from the shelf. It will be 0 GH and KH which is what we are after at the moment. You can substitute the spring water if it has a GH of less than 3 drops.
Okay, let's see, that's about 10 years worth of information......$12K/ year salary I earned during those 10 years ( I was very young when I learned this stuff.)....... Add the time it took to read your post at my current salary base.........carry the 2........... add the 5..........OKAY, your total for this help is..............Just sign a blank check and I'll fill in the number
BTW: You could have been nice and kept that cold weather up your way!!! I had to wrap each tank in styrofoam cause we are going below freezing tonight and my tanks are outside And to top it all off, I had a new pair of fish spawn while I was wrapping the tanks. Had to wait till they were done to pull the eggs. It's the male's first spawn but the female's 5th or 6th so who knows what will come of it?