Angel Eggs hatching

[Linwood]

Well, I think the ones in the community tank are gone. Not certain, but we couldn't find any. I injected some brine shrimp anyway, but I suspect they became lunch.

The QT is doing better than I had any expectations. There are at least a dozen, maybe more -- and I moved very few over, so I think almost all lived. I just put in some more brine shrimp, and we looked at them (even while adding more) and most of them had bright, orange, round bellies. I'll get some photos tomorrow.

I want to vacuum, the bottom is pretty covered in old food and whatnot. But there's always several cruising low over the bottom. I do have a nice cycled filter so at least I shouldn't be building up ammonia.

Very interesting. I really thought most of them were dead, they slowed down a lot. Now they are very active.

Basically nothing but swimming eyes and bellies, connected with a bit of jelly.

 

[Hobbiest]

Keep an eye on parents in community tank they will let you know if any fry are still alive by the way they guard them.

If there is a lot of food on bottom with fry you need to clean bottom I did 50% a day fry are fragile at that stage. I was scared of cleaning bottom for the same reason you are what I ended up doing is using an air line tubing to suction up the debris instead of large hose and then look at the water you took out before discarding to make sure you didn't get one while trying to clean before dumping water. To keep tubing straight, so you can clean where you want, put the tubing through a new straw it really works!

Listen to Andy, she is the expert. I am a newbee that understands what your going through and all the questions, because I am only a few weeks ahead of where your at now and I ask the exact same questions, hopefully some of my little tricks can help you.

 

[Linwood]

Keep an eye on parents in community tank they will let you know if any fry are still alive by the way they guard them.

Yeah, they are no longer hanging out in the same place much, and have gone back to "normal" behavior.

If there is a lot of food on bottom with fry you need to clean bottom I did 50% a day fry are fragile at that stage. I was scared of cleaning bottom for the same reason you are what I ended up doing is using an air line tubing to suction up the debris instead of large hose and then look at the water you took out before discarding to make sure you didn't get one while trying to clean before dumping water. To keep tubing straight, so you can clean where you want, put the tubing through a new straw it really works!

I did this morning. First I took a wide razor scraper, and VERY slowly swept all the left over to one edge of the tank. It was actually pretty easy to sweep without it flying everywhere, but lifting the scraper was hard.

With about 90% in a small row, I tried the straw trick but no big straws in house, so I just rubber banded tube to a thin wooden dowel, worked great.

Even so, I sucked up 5 fry. They were swarming around the tube, and even keeping it pretty flat to the bottom I still got some. Dipped them out with a cup and put them back, hopefully undamaged.

I was pleasantly surprised to find only about 3 dead fry in the detritus; when they went pretty still a day or two before free swimming, I thought i had a huge dead percentage, but apparently not.

Off to decant some more shrimp.

I've made it through a few more hundred of the Wigglers thread but one thing still alludes me...

On average, about how long does it take for fry to grow to the point they are likely to survive in a gentle community tank. Say something like dime sized, or maybe a bit smaller?

 

[Linwood]

I said I'd post some more photos if anyone is interested. Here are some from this morning.

The first is a bad shot in some ways, but it is the only one I could get showing the sinuous tail during swimming:

Side view:

And caught two in frame, good contrast on their full bellies:

The round things concern me a bit, they appear to be the brine shrimp eggs, but I expected them to be hatched. They could be some First Bites (despite the recommendation above I've been feeding a bit of rotifers and a bit of first bites each day in between brine shrimp just to make sure they are finding something. I'm only doing one batch of brine shrimp a day, so these fill the gaps before the next batch is ready or after it seems a bit old.

 

[Andy Sager]

I've made it through a few more hundred of the Wigglers thread but one thing still alludes me...

On average, about how long does it take for fry to grow to the point they are likely to survive in a gentle community tank. Say something like dime sized, or maybe a bit smaller?

That all depends on the size tank they are being raised in, the quality and quantity of food they are being fed and the water quality they are being raised in. So there is no ONE answer to this question. What I can say is for me, I could get my fry to nickel body size in 10-12 weeks. Dime size should be approx 6-8/9 weeks. Keep in mind, many fry may die pre dime size due to genetics and there is nothing you can do about it. Nature has a way of making the stronger ones survive while eliminating the weak. It has been my experience that dime size and smaller fish have a higher percentage of unexplained deaths than nickle size and larger. That's why I don;t sell ( or buy) Angels smaller than nickel body size. Sizes, of course, are all approximates.

Hope this answers your question

 

[Hobbiest]

I'm not sure what round things in pics are, but like I said I fed mine Instant Ocean BBS. I really don't even know how big they have to be to put into community tank but I assume it would depend on what type of fish you have in the big tank. They told me in this forum when mine were about six weeks that they would wait at least another six weeks before introducing them to other fish.

Mine are nine weeks on Saturday and their bodies w/o fins are about dime size. I am trying to hurry and get the 35 gal. established so I can get all these fry out of a twenty gal with parents. They are still too small to put into my 65 Gal. community tank. There is a large angel in community tank that may still try to eat them and my skirted tetras may chase and nip at them. There is no getting around needing another tank even with yours being huge and if you plan on keeping them you'll need a huge grow out tank! I only purchased a thirty five gallon to put them in ,but I know I have to get rid of quite a few.

Raising them is interesting and fun, I would do it again, but it seems like every time I figure one problem out there's another to contend with. It is defiantly a learning experience for me and I am having fun doing it . If you have time check out the pic's on my profile under My Fish Pic's and you'll see how big they are at about six weeks. I will see if I can post current pic tonight but don't know if I will get around to it.

 

[Andy Sager]

Raising them is interesting and fun, I would do it again, but it seems like every time I figure one problem out there's another to contend with. It is defiantly a learning experience for me and I am having fun doing it .

Welcome to the world of fish breeding. It's always something that needs to be dealt with.
There was a book series many years ago called " Raising....for fun and profit." (Insert any animal in the blank.) The bottom line was usually, to do it for fun was not profitable and to do it for profit was not always fun. I can attest to the last part. It's work, and lots of it, to be profitable. I've been breeding fish since 1965 so I have had a lot of experiences, which I share here. Bottom line, it takes a number of tanks to continuously breed Angels and Breeding Angel pairs are not the best fish for community tanks. There are no short cuts.

But it IS fun!!!! For me

 

[Hobbiest]

If I could find a job doing this I would be in heaven! I love my fish the tanks and the babies and through all my trials and errors I must be doing something right because I have had the fish I have for better than five years. I have five children, three already grown ,two at home still and a grandson plus I work full time. You can bet though , if I'm not at work I am either walking my shepherd or cleaning a tank. I'm surprised my husband hasn't thrown me and my tanks out but he does call me fish women

 

[Linwood]

That all depends on the size tank they are being raised in,.....
Hope this answers your question

Yes, thank you. And thanks for the patience. This started as a lark, unexpectedly since they bred within a couple days of being introduced to the tank.

Mine are nine weeks on Saturday and their bodies w/o fins are about dime size. I am trying to hurry and get the 35 gal. established so I can get all these fry out of a twenty gal with parents. They are still too small to put into my 65 Gal. community tank. There is a large angel in community tank that may still try to eat them and my skirted tetras may chase and nip at them.

Sounds similar. I have two other potential homes, one is a large, very lightly stocked tank with 15 congo tetras and 6 angels and a variety of small stuff. On the good side there are 3 tiny mosquito fish that have avoided becoming lunch, on the bad side the congos are voracious eaters at feeding time. Not sure what the "right" size will be for that.

Welcome to the world of fish breeding. It's always something that needs to be dealt with. .....

But it IS fun!!!! For me

It is, but my problem is two fold. One the one hand they are occupying my only quarantine tank, and I did want a few more fish soon. The other is that it's winter in florida, which means visitors, and my boss doesn't appreciate the mess I have with the two main tanks, much less this third thing with air pumps running and brine shrimp hatching every day, and salt spray from the air hoses, etc. Not to mention this has been a distraction from finishing turning the large tank stand from a bunch of 2x lumber into a piece of furniture, which I promised to do before visitors also.

But she's fascinated by the babies, so we're about to run into the collision of her wanting to see them grow and be taken care of and having the house a wreck.

So having some idea of the timing of the end of this trek is helpful. Thank you all.

PS. I have no intention of becoming an angel (or other) breeder for real. This just came up. The next set is on their own.

 

[Andy Sager]

If I could find a job doing this I would be in heaven! I love my fish the tanks and the babies and through all my trials and errors I must be doing something right because I have had the fish I have for better than five years.

Too bad you don;t live closer. I'll be needing some help in the Hatchery.

 

[Hobbiest]

A job doing something you love, imagine that, didn't think there was such a thing. Unfortunately Illinois is a long way from Florida.

 

[Hobbiest]

Sorry I didn't have time to put new pic's on my profile last night but they are all posted now. Fry are almost nine weeks old

 

[Andy Sager]

A job doing something you love, imagine that, didn't think there was such a thing. Unfortunately Illinois is a long way from Florida.

When a "job" is something you enjoy, it's never "work" I loves me fishies. It's never WORK for me.

 

[Hobbiest]

How do you quote on this thing anyhow, I was pretty much saying if I lived in Florida and worked in a hatchery it would be a doing something I love instead of work ,but your getting paid for it.

I really could not get seriously into breeding for a living. My father once said "It takes money to make money" and it is very true. I wish there were places around here that bred them ,because that is where I would be.

I think it is past time to move my babies out of parent tank so that is what I am going to do tonight. One more question before I begin how on earth do you make a drip line slow enough to make it one drip per second?( To acclimate to another tank?)

 

[Andy Sager]

How do you quote on this thing anyhow, I was pretty much saying if I lived in Florida and worked in a hatchery it would be a doing something I love instead of work ,but your getting paid for it.

I really could not get seriously into breeding for a living. My father once said "It takes money to make money" and it is very true. I wish there were places around here that bred them ,because that is where I would be.

I think it is past time to move my babies out of parent tank so that is what I am going to do tonight. One more question before I begin how on earth do you make a drip line slow enough to make it one drip per second?( To acclimate to another tank?)

To quote, at the bottom of each post are buttons for "Thanks" "Edit" "Quote" "Multiple quotes" and "Quick response". Just click the right button.

For the drip line, you use airline tubing and a one way valve. The valve can be adjusted to any speed so just adjust to a slow drip.

Finally, no disrespect intended to your Dad but there are ways to make money without starting with a lot of money. In fact, I started a hatchery on a shoestring budget and the fish themselves paid for 2 moves to larger facilities. It CAN be done.

 

[Hobbiest]

Thanks for info on drip line and my dads been gone for many years so I'm sure there's no disrespect taken. I guess it all depends on how bad you want something, in some ways your both right. We'll see how much I can learn and what happens with this little batch of babies it's not like I have anything to loose I'm almost thirty fry ahead

 

[Hobbiest]

Duhh... I just realized where the buttons were, not very computer savvy can you tell.

 

[Hobbiest]

To quote, at the bottom of each post are buttons for "Thanks" "Edit" "Quote" "Multiple quotes" and "Quick response". Just click the right button.

 

[Hobbiest]

Still didn't figure it out the quote is supposed to be with first post. I guess I should have daughter teach about this stuff a bit Huh.

 

[Andy Sager]

If you want to quote the first post of the thread, you need to click 'Quote" at the bottom of that post. It quotes the post that is showing in the post you clicked Quote in.

Also. when the message comes up, make sure you start typing AFTER the second quote. This is post #33 and I quoted it and then cut and pasted it here to show you what you need to look for.

When a "job" is something you enjoy, it's never "work" I loves me fishies. It's never WORK for me.

I have seen messages where the second quote is a few lines after the last typed word.