Wigglers 2: Birth of a hatchery & everything Angels

[Andy Sager]

Update

Today's plan was to clear out the remaining temporary tanks and rack and prepare the place for the next section of tanks for grow outs. ( Pic 1 is what the place started out looking like this a.m. and pic 2 is how I made it look by night fall. I've already placed 4 of the 100 gal vats in the building for space visualization and they fit!! Next step is to buy the parts necessary to put this rack into action. Once this rack is done, there will be no more fish in my house and just breeders and babies less than 30 days old on the breeder rack. From there it's the selling rack and presto!!!, I'm in business.

 

[jetajockey]

Looks great Andy. How are you coping with that blower noise? I ended up going with a linear drive air system since I hate blower noise.

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[Andy Sager]

Looks great Andy. How are you coping with that blower noise? I ended up going with a linear drive air system since I hate blower noise.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

I have to admit, it is a little louder than I would like and it does make listening to the radio or the computer a bit more difficult from the other side of the place but all in all, I am so used to having big pumps and motors going that I hardly notice it. I focus on the bubbles. I really missed the bubbles. lol Now I have all the bubbles I could want.
I'm still going to need a back up air source so I haven't ruled out a linear pump. I was just forced to put my old beast into action because I needed to have more tanks going to handle the spawns that were happening. It was this or another trip to the LFS for yet another vibrating pump. It just seemed rediculus to not utilize what I had. And the good part was with all that PVC piping I got from the breeder's room I bought, I just needed to buy a couple of fittings and ball valves and the whole thing was operational in less than an hour. How could I say "No"?

 

[jetajockey]

I used an alita al60 in my last build, but in this most recent one I decided to shop around. I got an "elemental" pump from eBay for around 50. So it's about 1/4 the price of the alita. So far it's dead silent and I've got it pushing around 35 filters. I don't know how much more it's capable of but seems to be fine as is.

It also uses substantially less power.

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[Andy Sager]

I used an alita al60 in my last build, but in this most recent one I decided to shop around. I got an "elemental" pump from eBay for around 50. So it's about 1/4 the price of the alita. So far it's dead silent and I've got it pushing around 35 filters. I don't know how much more it's capable of but seems to be fine as is.

It also uses substantially less power.

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Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into that.

 

[Mr Fisher]

I used an alita al60 in my last build, but in this most recent one I decided to shop around. I got an "elemental" pump from eBay for around 50. So it's about 1/4 the price of the alita. So far it's dead silent and I've got it pushing around 35 filters. I don't know how much more it's capable of but seems to be fine as is.

It also uses substantially less power.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

+1 on the elemental pump. I've had mine for a year now. It works well and is pretty quiet.

 

[Andy Sager]

+1 on the elemental pump. I've had mine for a year now. It works well and is pretty quiet.

OK. I just hope I can adapt to the quiet.

 

[Brookster123]

Love the sound of the bubbles too, best part of walking into my lfs... humidity, smell and bubbles! !!! Looks tip top andy!! Interesting point on removal and re introduction of spawns.. know a betta breeder, he had 9 in cube, i was shocked.. he said they're fine if they grow up together but of he were to remove one for even 2 minutes and put it back they'd be all over it!! I doubt our cichlids are that dramatic, i wouldn't dare return spawn to my panduro tank..

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[Andy Sager]

Love the sound of the bubbles too, best part of walking into my lfs... humidity, smell and bubbles! !!! Looks tip top andy!! Interesting point on removal and re introduction of spawns.. know a betta breeder, he had 9 in cube, i was shocked.. he said they're fine if they grow up together but of he were to remove one for even 2 minutes and put it back they'd be all over it!! I doubt our cichlids are that dramatic, i wouldn't dare return spawn to my panduro tank..

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That's right with the Bettas. That's how some people mistake them for being able to live together. While it does happen with strangers in some of today's strains, it's more a rare thing than a commonplace. But I've raised entire spawns together for as long as 6-8 months. At that point, the males would really start nipping fins on their brothers too much. Not an issue if you are breeding them but a BIG issue if you are trying to sell them. As for doing it with Angels, not while the mate was around. That being said, genetic traits are stabilized by breeding back Mothers to Sons and Fathers to Daughters so they are compatible. I just doubt there is a deeper connection.

 

[Andy Sager]

So in my efforts to be transparent with this build out and my effinity for truth in advertising , I need to correct something I posted before. Turns out, after some serious calculations, my 100 gal vats are really only 75 gals. I thought they were deeper but today, while trying to figure out the rack for them, I did an accurate measurement and did the math and OOOPS, learned I made a boo boo in my description. Sorry.
But the good news is that since they aren't as deep as first thought, I have fiddled with the layout and managed to have enough room for 6 more of those breeder tanks. So I guess I didn;t really lose any gallonage, just where the gallonage will be stored.

On the fish front, sadly, the spawn from my old Koi/ Gold Marble pair seems to be a dud. The fry are not coming off the bottom and tonight I only saw maybe one or two actually acting like fish. So I am going to scrap that spawn and free up the tank. There are a few possibilities as to why they turned out this way, one being that they had been outside in the heat for 2 summers so it may take some time to get them back into good shape. Another possibility is that this is normal for them and I wasn't aware due to the confusion I had going on when all the fish were spawning and I had the "in house" hatchery going on. Considering that I only have 1 F1 fish that I know came from them, it could mean I need to fidget with the pair to see if it's them as a pair or one of the fish itself. Time will tell. All the rest of the babies are doing great.

 

[Andy Sager]

Got the rest of the supplies ( I hope ) to start building the grow out rack. And none too soon. The blushings spawned again today so I have about 2 weeks to get a tank ready for their last spawn to be moved in to so their next spawn has a tank to go in.
I decided to throw some new genetics into the Black Angel line I have left. I put him in with a Silver from a local shop so I know their offspring will have something "new " in them. I'm not seeing any action with the Half Blacks so I am setting up a tank to put the 3 of them in and let them decide who the pair should be. The remaining male will be placed with the Zebra Lace, hopefully making some Half Black Zebras.
Never a dull moment when you are breeding fish lol

 

[jetajockey]

Andy are you doing any blues? I think my favorite angels right now are our blue marbles.

 

[Andy Sager]

Andy are you doing any blues? I think my favorite angels right now are our blue marbles.

Truthfully, I'm not a big fan of the blue lines. ( Or maybe I just haven't seen any really good ones locally? )At the moment, I am trying to just fill pre-orders for the old lines ( i.e. Silver Veils, non Koi Marbles, Gold, Gold Veils, etc.) I'm more interested in breeding some of the newer wild Angel types that were discovered since the 80s. THAT will be a nostalgia trip for me as I was breeding wild Scalare back in the 60s.

 

[Andy Sager]

Well the 1/2 black experiment was short lived. Even in a totally new tank, the 2 males started fighting immediately upon seeing each other. I couldn;t really tell which male the female was interested in as she was pecking at both males but was really more disinterested in the whole thing. I let the fighting go on for a little bit as it was primarily lip locking and very little damage was being done but called a truce once some fins were torn and put in a divider into the tank keeping the original pair together. Hopefully, this little episode will help spur the pair to spawn.
What I did see was some really nice coloration on these fish. Their markings were strong while they were fighting. There is no doubt that i have 2 strains of 1/2 blacks as the pair are 1/2 zebras while the single male is a 1/2 black silver. This makes me think I might be better off putting the single male with the silver female that I just put the black male with and moving the black in with the female Zebra Lace. Hopefully i will get a spawn from the black/ silver pairing and then, if the spawn survives, move him over to the Zebra's tank and put the 1/2 black with the silver. Decisions, decisions

 

[Fishobsessed7]

How many pairs do you plan to have total when you are all setup?


Fishobsessed7

 

[Andy Sager]

How many pairs do you plan to have total when you are all setup?


Fishobsessed7

My original plan was for 13 or 14 but I have reconfigured the breeding rack and lost 2 tanks so I may only have 11. Once the second rack is up tho, I may change it all back to the original layout. It will all depend on how many varieties come from a single pair.

 

[Andy Sager]

Well, another day, another spawn. The Black and Silver spawned this afternoon. I'm starting to see my old fish coming around and getting back into the swing of things. Hopefully, it will be a successful spawn. I can see the beginnings of a nice black line and 1/2 black line if it is.
I'm making progress on the grow out rack but it's slow. Since the design calls for multiple levels at different heights, I'm doing more shimming than I expected and needing a number of smaller pieces of wood to fill in gaps for supports. Once it's done tho, I can call in the electrician to get that AC working again and put in more outlets.

Interestingly enough, the experiment with the 3 half Blacks had a desired effect. The male from the pair spent most of today in great color and was cleaning the slate frequently. Maybe a sign that the appearance of the other male was enough to get him back "in the mood" ? The female paid little attention to his efforts when i was watching but she is starting to swell with eggs so who knows? Ironically, the Black male was doing the same to the female silver and just ignoring her most of the day. But I left the building for about 20 minutes and when I went back, I saw them "doing the deed" together. Spawn was pulled, slate was replaced and the eggs are safe in their own tank. Let the hatching commence!!!!!!

 

[Andy Sager]

Had an interesting situation with the Black/ Silver pair. Some back ground info on her: I had her by herself for quite some time and she spawned twice on her own. Then, I put her in with some adult Guppies a while ago as she seemed to be acting oddly which I attributed to her isolation. She recovered. That was then.....
This is now: I immediately removed the slate full of eggs after their spawn the other day and I replaced it with another slate in the same location. You could tell they expected the eggs to still be on the slate by the way they responded to it and looked intently for their eggs. They seemed okay with the disappearing eggs at feeding time but yesterday, I noticed the male had a few torn parts on his tail. I just figured the female was a little annoyed with him for losing the eggs ( which sometimes happens). Today, the nips turned into all out attacks on him so I put an eggcrate divider in the tank to try and save the male from any more damage. Well that didn't work as somehow, he managed to get back to her side while I was out of the building. So when I saw this, I took out the divider as he obviously wants to be with her. Then, when I went back in for feeding time, she was back to giving it to him bad so I put the divider back in again. By the time I was done with feeding, he was back on her side again so I pulled the divider again and turned out the lights.
It's been a while since I have had fish blaming each other for a lost spawn but this is definitely what's going on here. So, for now, I've decided that their next spawn, I will let them try to raise as long as the current spawn is doing well. Worst case, I will leave the eggs in a jar in the breeder's tank so they can see them and see how that goes when they get removed.
One of the tasks to breeding fish is understanding the fish's behavior. Not all fish act this way or that way so you need to understand what every way is. With Angels, fights happen, fish get marked up and injured. That's all part of the game. But it's obvious that that male wants to be with that female even tho she is on his case about the eggs. He did a good job on fertilizing the eggs as there are few dead ones at this stage, which makes him a viable fish to breed continuously. So we will see what happens from here. I want to know before I expose her to the 1/2 black male.

On the baby front, I am seeing a number of Gold Angels in the spawns from the GM/ Koi pair. I want to keep them to try to get back some good gold angels in the mix. I should have the grow out rack operational in a few days so it shouldn't be a space issue.

 

[Mr Fisher]

If you need some golds, let me know when things warm up. My gold pair are producing about 75% gold 25% SSB

 

[Andy Sager]

If you need some golds, let me know when things warm up. My gold pair are producing about 75% gold 25% SSB

Thanks. I'd like to see what these turn out to be before I bring in outside fish tho. They may become gold marbles like prior fish from this female. They are just too small yet to know. If they stay pure, I have Zebra veils that came from a Zebra Veil/ Gold pair so I may get veils as well as from that pairing. It's all guess work at this point. But thanks again for the offer.