Wigglers 2: Birth of a hatchery & everything Angels

[Andy Sager]

I have seen this before!
It is even harder then normal.
But it is either let them go ..or do the best you can(which usually means less then what we know is needed.)
You know better then me and the acceptance; we don't get to keep them all,but isn't a few better then none?
As dust specs it is so hard for me know or say "you are the one".
They announce themselves ,only if you let them .
Good work my friend(now get those other tanks going !)

What's funny is the domino effect I have set up in here. With no empty tanks available immediately, I had to be creative. To leave everything as was, I would have had to run to Lowes for 2 half bricks and 4 PVC fittings to get the new rack & tanks working. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't a 40 mile round trip for me. So here's what I did: Mixed 2 tanks of fry that were both small amounts which emptied a tank. Cleaned the tank. Emptied the 40 long of the first Zebra Lace- 1/2 Black spawn and put them and their water in the empty tank then stole the half bricks from that rack for the new rack. ( I'm changing the 40 long to another set up anyway so all those bricks will go into another rack. ) Went to get the 2x 4s for the new rack only to find that I used them temporarily as a shelf for some boxes so I had to put up the brackets for the permanent shelves tonight so that I can cut the proper shelving tomorrow so that I can move the boxes and reclaim the 2 x 4s so that I can finish building the rack. I then rummaged through a number of boxes and found the 4 PVC fittings I was needing ( which would have cost maybe $2.00 to buy new ones ) so I put them in the tanks and set them up to water test and they are now holding water. Then, I decided to change the final tanks for the new rack and will need to go to Lowes to get the 4 PVC pieces for 2 more flow through tanks so that I can plumb the whole 6 tank system to be flow through once I put in the drainpipe. ( Whew!!!!) Once that's finished, I can add the 6 more tanks to the existing grow out rack and I made room for 4 more tanks on the breeder's rack which I will use temporarily while I build another rack to house 3 more tanks. Once that's done, I am building a rack for some plastic bins for the catfish to spawn in. Once that is all done, I'll need to build the table to use for pack outs. THEN I will be done as I will have no more room inside.......... ( but I do have a concrete slab along side the building. Hmmmmmm )

HELP!!!! I am out of control and I think I like it!

 

[Andy Sager]

So close yet so far The shelves over the breeder row went in today, the 30 gal taks went outside and I built the basic layout for the selling rack. 2 of the 3 levels are done. The third is just missing the half bricks then I can start putting the tanks on the rack. I have 4 water tested and passed( )so I can get them in quickly ( I hope). I decided to definitely make the top level the flow through tanks to make my life a little easier when it comes to water changes. I'm also going to make the top level over the vats the flow through tanks as well instead of the 5 -20 longs. It's obvious the more frequent water changes is helping the fish grow so I'm sacrificing 2 tanks for faster growth. I'll just change the breeder row to accommodate more 20s.

As I predicted, it looks like the Barred Marble male is going to lose that eye. To make things worse, the other pair of Barred Marbles haven't made a fertile spawn since I moved them to the breeder's row. I know they WERE fertile, just not sure what their issue is now. Both pairs of fish on either side of their tank are spawning like crazy so it's not the location. I may just put them back together with their siblings and let them re pair up with others to see what happens.

Lastly, a good surprise . At this point, there are only about 5 pleco eggs that are still orange. (I left them in the tank "just in case??" ) I candled them tonight and with a high powered magnifying glass, I am pretty sure I saw a tail wiggling inside an egg. Right now, I just want to get 1 egg to hatch, for the experience and for the knowledge that these are fertile fish in my water. I anxiously await their hatching.

 

[Andy Sager]

I came in this morning and saw the 3 little Angels in the tank with the plecos pecking at the clear pleco eggshells so I decided to pull the "glob" and put it in a bucket with an airstone to see if any would hatch. Well tonight I got confirmation 3 of the remaining 5 pleco eggs hatched and there are still 2 more orange eggs left. Hopefully they will hatch overnight.

The new selling rack is up and 5 of the 7 tanks are on it and holding water. The last 2 tanks are outside being water tested so tomorrow I should be able to put them up as well. Once they are up, I can plumb in the air and later, the water. With these tanks working, I can start to separate the fish that are salable now and condensing the others to free up more larger tanks for the spawns that need to be moved out of the 10s.
As an added surprise, I figured out how to add an extra 20 long and 2 -10 gals to the breeder row. And in the nick of time as well. The new 1/2 blacks are looking like they are getting ready to spawn, the new marble & marble veil turned out to be a male & female and tried to spawn in the holding tank last night. There was nothing I could do about it with no empty tanks and I was just hoping they wouldn't beat up the other fish protecting the eggs. Well, today the slate was clean and their tubes were more retracted so I can only assume the eggs were eaten by the other fish. ? At this point, I'm just glad all was quiet in the tank this morning.
And to make things worse, I have the koi pair spawning as I am typing so I am going to also put that spawn in a bucket for the night. Tomorrow is water change day so I hope to have at least a new tank in place and filled so I can put them in it in a couple of days.
That's enough excitement for one day

 

[Andy Sager]

Well it looks like the Pleco count will remain at 3. I can't even find the other 2 eggs in the bucket so I can only assume they didn't hatch and went clear like the rest.
I changed my mind about adding more 20s to the breeder rack but was still able to add 1- 20 long and 3-10 gals. This just means I will have to move some fish into the grow out tanks a bit sooner for the larger spawns. I'm adding 6 more to the rack I have now so this should more than compensate for the loss of the 2 extra 20s I was going to add. I figured the 10s were more important so it made little sense to sacrifice 3-10s for 1- 20. Worst case scenario is that I can always change them later if necessary. For now, the assorted adults I have in the wrong tanks will be going into the 5- 20s I already have set up. This will free up all these 10s for babies. Then, when I move the fish that are salable to the selling rack, I can condense the rest and have more tanks for the fry getting ready to go into those tanks. THEN, the round robin will be working better. This way is just too hard. See, it takes TANKS to raise Angels.... and lots of them.

Happy Father's day to all the Dad's reading this.

 

[Fishobsessed7]

Hey Andy, I have another question for you. Out of my five Angels, one is growing way faster than the others. It has probably almost doubled in size, while the others have only grown a little. The faster growing one was the largest when I purchased them, so I was thinking that once they hit hit a certain size, they have a major growth spurt? Or I was thinking the slower growing ones were runts, but it seems like the odds of getting 4/5ths of your fish as runts is pretty low. Any advice you have on this would be very helpful!


Fishobsessed7

3 tanks and counting! (6 if you count the bettas)

 

[Andy Sager]

Hey Andy, I have another question for you. Out of my five Angels, one is growing way faster than the others. It has probably almost doubled in size, while the others have only grown a little. The faster growing one was the largest when I purchased them, so I was thinking that once they hit hit a certain size, they have a major growth spurt? Or I was thinking the slower growing ones were runts, but it seems like the odds of getting 4/5ths of your fish as runts is pretty low. Any advice you have on this would be very helpful!


Fishobsessed7

3 tanks and counting! (6 if you count the bettas)

Actually, with today's fish and the unknown sources they may be coming from, it is highly possible that 4/5 of the fish are or were the runts
of the spawn and that's why they are taking so much longer to grow. I see it with some of my pairs. ( I also have 6 fish I kept from my very first spawns 2 years ago that are now the size they should have been about a year ago ) Some are throwing way too many runts and defective fish for my liking. Unfortunately, you don't know this until many months after the fact. I am going to try mixing up some pairs to see if I can get some new genes into their genepool to see if that helps reduce the runt issue. As for your case, if 1 is growing at a good pace and the others aren't, I would think that there is nothing more you can do that you are not already doing. Just maintain good water maintenance and a good varied diet and let them grow at their own pace.
I would suggest that if you plan on breeding these fish in the future, you not breed the ones that are growing slowly. This will just perpetuate the problem. If you don't plan on breeding, just enjoy them as they grow.

Wish I could have given you better news.

 

[Andy Sager]

Well it's been about 6 months now since this hatchery has really been operational so it's time for a review.
On the whole, I am pleased with the set up but have had to make some revisions to the original layout to make room for more tanks. As with every hatchery, you always want ( or need) more tanks to accommodate the unexpected fish. This one is no different. lol I have laid out plans and in the middle of building, realized that I could do things differently and use a different spot for what I was building for. Case in point, the area I was going to build a rack for the catfish just turned into a rack to hold my 40 gal long and a 30 gal long tank. The catfish tubs will fit on the floor in between the concrete blocks holding up the breeder rack and the selling rack. By doing this, I actually get more tubs into circulation than if I built the rack for them. I realized this as I was pulling out the 10 gals that were being stored in that area to put up on the breeder rack. It's the ABCs of breeding ( Always Be Changing. )
As for the fish, I am happy with some, not so with others. I'm getting some nice Pandas from the Koi/ GM pair and dark Marbles and the surprise Golds from the other Marlboro/ GM pair. The Black/ Silver pair are making a lot of babies which are mostly Black Lace with a few dark Blacks in there as well. The Blushings were going great until I lost the male but I have enough of the fry to keep some to grow out to be the next breeding generation. The new Gold Marble with the Blushing female seems to be doing a good job and their first spawn is doing well and I am waiting for their third spawn to start free swimming. Unfortunately, spawn #2 was on the glass wall so I couldn't remove them and so the female did it for me The Red Cap's first spawn is doing nicely as is their second. I still don't see any red for sure on any of the fry but I plan on keeping all of them to see what happens. If they are like my old red caps, the red won't appear until they are more mature. I'm not going to make that same mistake again.
The big losers have been the 1/2 Blacks and the 1/2 Black- Zebra Lace pairs. I only have 6 fry from the 1/2 Black pair that survived while I was away and 1 of them has a defective gill cover. None have turned Half Black yet either. But they will be the next breeders. Can't wait to see what happens with the second pair of 1/2 Blacks. Hopefully I get some better luck with them. The 1/2 Black- Zebra Lace are producing a lot of fry but they don't live. Every spawn so far will go about 3 weeks then have a massive die off leaving only a few fish. I do have some nice light colored Zebras and Silvers from them but I think I need to switch their partners to see if that solves the die off issue. The Barred Marbles have been a flop. Nice looking fish but sucky breeders. I only have 3 fry from one pair and none from the other. Now that I have the male with the damaged eye, I am not going to put him back with the female and just out cross them with other lines from other places. Maybe the mixing of their gene pools will get some better results. They were originally made by mixing 2 lines anyway so that may be the way to go. Breed the silvers with marbles and the heavier marbled ones with more silver ones.
The Zebra Veil/ Gold offspring have been making a lot of bad babies. A lot of runts and deformed fish tho. Definitely need to break up that pair and try them with other fish. This should help get the veiltail gene into more lines.
So that's where I sit for now. Thankfully, I have enough fish now to mix things up and so we will see what happens. At least I know that the next generation of fish I breed will be ones that don't disfigure as they mature or are runts to start with. Hopefully this will help start my quest of bringing back quality fish to the market.
Pics to follow.

 

[PoppaRyno]

Congrats sir. 6 months in and goin strong... I know of many businesses that couldnt do that

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[Andy Sager]

Congrats sir. 6 months in and goin strong... I know of many businesses that couldnt do that

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Thanks It's the proof that anyone can do it too if they do it right!

 

[Fishobsessed7]

Actually, with today's fish and the unknown sources they may be coming from, it is highly possible that 4/5 of the fish are or were the runts

of the spawn and that's why they are taking so much longer to grow. I see it with some of my pairs. ( I also have 6 fish I kept from my very first spawns 2 years ago that are now the size they should have been about a year ago ) Some are throwing way too many runts and defective fish for my liking. Unfortunately, you don't know this until many months after the fact. I am going to try mixing up some pairs to see if I can get some new genes into their genepool to see if that helps reduce the runt issue. As for your case, if 1 is growing at a good pace and the others aren't, I would think that there is nothing more you can do that you are not already doing. Just maintain good water maintenance and a good varied diet and let them grow at their own pace.

I would suggest that if you plan on breeding these fish in the future, you not breed the ones that are growing slowly. This will just perpetuate the problem. If you don't plan on breeding, just enjoy them as they grow.



Wish I could have given you better news.

Well that's sad I was hoping to breed them, but I guess not now and of course, the one growing good happens to be my least favorite!


Fishobsessed7

3 tanks and counting! (6 if you count the bettas)

 

[Andy Sager]

Well that's sad I was hoping to breed them, but I guess not now and of course, the one growing good happens to be my least favorite!


Fishobsessed7

3 tanks and counting! (6 if you count the bettas)

Sadly, this happens more than not. I have the same thing. My little koi male is just the fish I want to breed with my red cap female but he is such a wimp. I mean so much a wimp that for the few days he was moved into a bottom tank, I didn't notice that he must not have been eating. I have some guppies in with him so they must have been eating the food. Now that he is back in a top tank, the only thing he is eating eagerly is the newly hatched brine shrimp I make for the fry. If this continues and he doesn't start eating "big boy" food, I expect the red cap would just kill him if I paired them up. But these should make the perfect Kois but if I do get them to spawn, I have to be very particular which ones I keep to to continue the line. I certainly don't want wimpy fish. I want Angels that hold their heads high and shout out to the world " HEY!!! Look at ME!!! I'm an ANGELFISH!!!!!!" At this rate tho, it's not looking good for that to happen.

 

[Andy Sager]

I can not stress enough the importance of having tanks available when you are breeding fish, especially Angelfish. Of the 5 spawns I didn't have room for, I've lost 2, possibly 3 and the other 2 aren't reacting normally either. That's a lot of future $$$ that I just flushed down the drain.
What's worse is that it's from my laziness more than anything else. I have the tanks, just not set up. What good are tanks if they aren't on a rack and filled with water?

 

[coralbandit]

Congrats on your progress!
Breeding is a give and take/win and lose type deal.
You my friend have given the best and are winning!
Enjoy and keep up the improvements.
It never ends does it?(hopefully)

 

[Andy Sager]

Congrats on your progress!
Breeding is a give and take/win and lose type deal.
You my friend have given the best and are winning!
Enjoy and keep up the improvements.
It never ends does it?(hopefully)

Thanks but it's really frustrating when things like this happen when I know better. Losing spawns to disease, to predation, to surprise is a whole other story. THIS, was just stupidity on my part. ( Gives you a peak at what's going on in my mind. ) So, for anyone who thinks I give harsh advice or criticism to others, I'm worse on myself. So, "Do as I say, not as I do" ( most of the time. ; )

As for it never ending, No, it's too much embedded in my blood. If it came down to it, I'd be the last person on Earth having a fish tank. I fully expect to be found dead someday ( hopefully a long time from now. ) with a siphon hose in one hand and a fish net in the other.

But thanks for your comment.

 

[Mr Fisher]

Thanks but it's really frustrating when things like this happen when I know better. Losing spawns to disease, to predation, to surprise is a whole other story. THIS, was just stupidity on my part. ( Gives you a peak at what's going on in my mind. ) So, for anyone who thinks I give harsh advice or criticism to others, I'm worse on myself. So, "Do as I say, not as I do" ( most of the time. ; )

As for it never ending, No, it's too much embedded in my blood. If it came down to it, I'd be the last person on Earth having a fish tank. I fully expect to be found dead someday ( hopefully a long time from now. ) with a siphon hose in one hand and a fish net in the other.

But thanks for your comment.

Don't beat yourself up too bad Andy, I'm guilty of the exact same thing. I got real lazy after my foot surgery and let 4 apwns go and now that koixsilver pair aren't wanting to spawn

I do have 5 golds and 1 clown that are close to 6 months now and hoping for a pair there.

My endlers are also refusing to drop fry. Last year was a great year for me as far as fish sales go, this year I'm only a few hundred dollars over my break even point.

 

[Andy Sager]

Don't beat yourself up too bad Andy, I'm guilty of the exact same thing. I got real lazy after my foot surgery and let 4 apwns go and now that koixsilver pair aren't wanting to spawn

I do have 5 golds and 1 clown that are close to 6 months now and hoping for a pair there.

My endlers are also refusing to drop fry. Last year was a great year for me as far as fish sales go, this year I'm only a few hundred dollars over my break even point.

I understand. Don't worry, I use a padded glove on myself. It's just that, I am trying to set an example and look what I do..I get lazy and kill off fish. There's your lesson for everyone, you can't get lazy and expect everything to go smoothly. Granted, I am working with more tanks than the average hobbyist is but still, when you are trying to do "next level" thinking and fish keeping, LAZY does the opposite of getting these done.
As for your situation, you have an excuse Foot surgery is a good reason for being unable to do routine maintenance. Hopefully your feeling better ( and getting read to come visit me in FL ) and things will be getting back on track soon for you. Water changes should get your Endlers to "get
with the program" as long as you are providing good protection for the fry. It's my understanding that livebearers don't drop their fry when the female believes the fry won't survive. So change her mind(s).

Hope this helps and thanks for your comment.

 

[Andy Sager]

Picture time

Ok, I've teased you all long enough.
Here's pics of the hatchery as of today. It's not easy to get good full pics of the rows because the space between the rows is a bit narrow to stand and get a wide angle shot so I'll have to do this in a few posts.

Starting off we have the breeder row. The first pic is the original layout followed by what's now happened. I've condensed some of the 10s to make room for some extras so the next 2 pics are the front and back ends that have reconfigured. I know the place looks messy with airlines but this is because the lines for some of the top tanks are now with the fish in the middle and bottom rows while I added the extra tanks.

 

[Andy Sager]

The grow out rack has 2 sides which I labeled East side & West side. The Westside is done and can be seen in pic 1. I tossed in one of a vat full of growouts All 4 vats are full ATM and I will be pulling some to hold onto for future breeders shortly then start selling what's left.
Next is the new sales rack. 7 tanks that hopefully won't be full for very long any week.
Next is a quicky setup for my 40 long and 30 gal long. Right now the 30 has the 6 Black Lace Veils in there but it's too dark to see them. I'll be putting some of the smaller keepers in the 40 to get them some extra attention. Just to not have the tank look so sterile, I added the plastic plants but won't be setting this up with gravel and such so that I can keep the detritus to a minimum.

 

[Andy Sager]

And to finish up, here's my brine shrimp hatching setup in pic 1 and the water line setup for the grow out row is #2. In this pic you can also see some of the Eastside of the growout rack. That still needs a top level and I'll post that pic once completed. So after that, the only thing left is the small rack for the 15 gal and 2- 10 gals for the catfish and a pack out table (unless I set up some more tanks in a sheltered outside area . )

Hope these have been worth the wait.

 

[Bdonaldson]

Wow! It looks like you have a lot going on with this setup.

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