Wigglers At Last!!!!!

[Karay]

Glad you mentioned when to remove meth blue. I was about to start tomorrow.

 

[AngelWings]

No worries about hijacking the thread. Explain away. If I haven't asked the same questions yet, then I surely will be soon.

I tried to hatch a batch of brine shrimp eggs and didn't have success. Some hatched, but the hatch rate was extremely low. Are there tricks to getting them to successfully hatch?

 

[Karay]

Andy - after 7-10 days after hatching they need to be moved into another tank. 10 gal? After that a month or so they moved again to another larger tank. What size would be the best?

 

[Andy Sager]

Andy - after 7-10 days after hatching they need to be moved into another tank. 10 gal? After that a month or so they moved again to another larger tank. What size would be the best?

The bigger the better. Angelfish get stunted if overcrowded so you want to give them as much room as possible. (If you use too small of a tank, you'll either be culling the bigger fish to put into another tank or picking out smaller dead ones due to their larger siblings.) I've used everything from plastic coffin liners to 5' diameter kiddy pools (from Toys R Us) to grow out my fish (all in indoor hatcheries.) All depends on how much room you got
I always used my tanks #2 & #3 in a round robin. Spawn #1 went into tank #2. Spawn #2 went into tank #3. By the time spawn #3 happened, the fry in tank #2 were ready for the grow out tank(Tank #4) so spawn #3 went into a now empty tank#2 and so on. Just remember, Angels take between 10 -12 weeks to be of a salable size so you will need to either have plenty of grow out room or sacrifice a spawn and let the pair take care of it. That slows down their spawning rate. (Nothing like a couple hundred kids to kill your desire to breed, ay )

Did I cover everything?

 

[Karay]

I assume tank #1 is the parents tank right?

 

[Andy Sager]

Yes, sorry to not mention that. lol

 

[Karay]

Yes, sorry to not mention that. lol

No worries. A little slow at this time of night. Tanks #2 & 3 are of equal size (say 30 gal?) and I have a 46 gal grow out tank. Or is 30 gal to big. I've heard they should be to big as the angels may become timid in such a large space. Or is this a matter of opinion?

 

[Andy Sager]

No worries. A little slow at this time of night. Tanks #2 & 3 are of equal size (say 30 gal?) and I have a 46 gal grow out tank. Or is 30 gal to big. I've heard they should be to big as the angels may become timid in such a large space. Or is this a matter of opinion?

I've gotten flack for this before by other members here but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.
In my setups, tanks #1,2 & 3 were all 10 gal tanks. By using the smaller, bare bottomed tanks, the fry were able to find the food much easier so they grew much faster. My grow outs, as I said before, were usually 75-100 gal tanks or vats, coffin liners or kiddy pools.
I can honestly say that I have produced over 1 million healthy, high quality Angelfish using this exact method over my career. It was taught to me in the 1960s and I used it all through the 1980s until I closed my last hatchery. (The only thing truly new with Angelfish since I closed are the color varieties. The new wild discoveries just need to revert back to the original breeding methods of the original Silver Angels.) People can dispute it but I was known in the industry for my quality Angelfish. The only time I used more than the 1- 10 gal for a spawn was when there were over 300 fry in the spawn. I would then split them into 2 tanks.
My business required me to produce a lot of fish. My conscience required that I made them quality fish, which I did. You can too using the same method.

Hope this helps

 

[Karay]

Thanks Andy. That helps immensely. I have space for two more 10 gallons (I can hear my wife groaning in her sleep). The parents are in a 20 gal but I need to change the filter from the hob to a sponge.

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks Andy. That helps immensely. I have space for two more 10 gallons (I can hear my wife groaning in her sleep). The parents are in a 20 gal but I need to change the filter from the hob to a sponge.

I can give you something to help her say "It's okay", In my last hatchery I was breeding 100 pairs of Angels. That meant 300-10 gal tanks just for the Angels (I was breeding other fish as well.) You can tell her that at least you don't want to breed that many pairs .

I'll tell ya, I wish I was smart enough to have bought stock in jungle labs (the company that supplied the sponge filters back in my day) because with all the sponge filters I bought from them, I would have been a richer man today When it comes to breeding, there is nothing (in my opinion) that beats a sponge filter. (And I recently read an article that showed that they were even more effective than the biowheel filters for biological filtration. )

Have a good night

 

[Karay]

I already mentioned to her about your spread that you had (you mentioned it in another post). I got the don't even think about. Lol too late! Funny how a guy who given his first tank 2 years ago by a neighbour, gained an interest in it 21 month later and in 3 month has 11 and looking to acquire more. Love it!

 

[Andy Sager]

There is no doubt that fish keeping is more addictive than most drugs. I started with a fascination of my Grandmother's tank, then on to a practicle joke where I put a male guppy in with a friend's female Guppy that I was watching for him while he was on vacation (at which point I hid the male in a tupperware container {my first official tank} when he returned for his fish) to over 20 tanks in my bedroom to fish houses with the largest one holding 25,000 gal of saltwater with over 300 tanks of freshwater fish. What's worse is helping y'all on this site has really got my juices flowing to get back in it again. LOL (I'm exploring an opportunity as I write this. )
So I know what you mean. ROFL

 

[Karay]

The issue I'm having is I'm a gardener at heart and love the idea of aquascaping (October to April isn't the prime growing season here in Canada). But breeding has caught my interest as well. That requires more tanks so I think my will be telling me to stick with aquascaping particularly since sh wants the display tank to be nice looking.

 

[Andy Sager]

Just tell the mrs. that aquascaping is okay but the tanks always look better when they are also full of fish and the cheapest way to do that is by self breeding. LOL Considering most of the fish you have mentioned have an average of 100 babies, just imagine your well aquascaped tank full of 100 Angelfish growing up. NICE!!!!! I can just picture it in my mind.

 

[Karay]

Just tell the mrs. that aquascaping is okay but the tanks always look better when they are also full of fish and the cheapest way to do that is by self breeding. LOL Considering most of the fish you have mentioned have an average of 100 babies, just imagine your well aquascaped tank full of 100 Angelfish growing up. NICE!!!!! I can just picture it in my mind.

Lol so can I. We're planning on moving this year so I don't want to be in the middle of something that will be hard to shut down. Mind you I will be looking for a house that has fish room potential!

 

[Andy Sager]

Fish room potential = Heated Basement or Garage lol.
Just keep your eyes open for good deals on used tanks and get them while you can. Nothing says you have to fill them before you move. I have about 12 tanks outside just waiting for a place to be set in. (I've had them for over 20 years ) They've been in 3 different houses.

 

[Karay]

Fish room potential = Heated Basement or Garage lol.
Just keep your eyes open for good deals on used tanks and get them while you can. Nothing says you have to fill them before you move. I have about 12 tanks outside just waiting for a place to be set in. (I've had them for over 20 years ) They've been in 3 different houses.

Local breeder is going out of business and selling tanks for 50 cents a gallon. Man I'm tempted!

 

[Karay]

And now I have wigglers!

 

[Andy Sager]

And now I have wigglers!

And that's a good thing, right??

More proof the system works! You now have a confirmed viable Male & Female.

You can start doing daily small water changes to reduce the M. Blue as previously discussed.

Congrats

 

[AngelWings]

Congrats!!!!!!