Am I a breeder now?????

[conor]

Woo hoo i have swimmers and alot more than i thought there would be
I guess i am one step closer to being a breeder now

 

[Andy Sager]

Woo hoo i have swimmers and alot more than i thought there would be
I guess i am one step closer to being a breeder now

Congrats........ and YES, you are.

 

[conor]

Thanks andy I'd be lost without you; )

But it's so hard to tell if they are eating or not my first batch of BS had a very poor hatch rate guessing 10% and i just copped on why, i used ordnary tap water(7.2PH) instead of the filtered water (8.2PH) i had tried on test batches, thankfully the second batch seems to be hatching better and are almost ready so between the two batches I think they have got a good feed but i have a lot of unhatched eggs to clean from the tank tomorrow

 

[conor]

Agh that was a successful feed i can see lots of big orange bellies but still a few empty ones but i guess they got a bit and i dont want to give more because the full one's look like they will burst if they got more lol

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks andy I'd be lost without you; )

But it's so hard to tell if they are eating or not my first batch of BS had a very poor hatch rate guessing 10% and i just copped on why, i used ordnary tap water(7.2PH) instead of the filtered water (8.2PH) i had tried on test batches, thankfully the second batch seems to be hatching better and are almost ready so between the two batches I think they have got a good feed but i have a lot of unhatched eggs to clean from the tank tomorrow

You don't have to lose those unhatched eggs. I'd take the air out of the bottle, let the eggs settle to the bottom then use a piece of airline tubing and siphon out the eggs from the bottom into your brine shrimp net. Place the eggs back into the good water and see if they hatch out. I take "late" hatching eggs and just collect them and then, when I have enough, I set up a new jar and try again to hatch them. I often get good hatches out of them. I figure they didn't hatch the first time because they weren't tumbling enough but who knows. Eggs are just too expensive now to waste so I try everything to not waste them.
Also, hatch percentages go up if you have them under light all the time. I keep a small fluorescent light shining at the bottles all the time. Flo lights won't heat up the water and are cheaper to run than regular lights. I don't know if the same will work with LED lights so if you use them, please let me know the results. Thanks

Yeah, it's pretty satisfying to see those little orange belly balls swimming around the tank after feeding. There are always going to be some fish that don't get or don't get enough which is why I feed 3 times per day. This way, the chances increase that the ones who didn't before, do at the next feeding. It seems to be working. Just look at my pics earlier in this thread.

 

[conor]

Agh too late for the unhatched eggs unfortunately but I'll know for again
I have a 40W bulb on them the whole time it works as heat too as i don't have a heated room they are going well now thankfully
Because of the failed batch i left them in longer than I should have and my 2 batches are out of sinc now so I'll have to give my last feed from the other batch about 8-10 hrs after hatching i know they won't have as much protein but will they still be small enough for the fry to eat?

 

[Andy Sager]

Agh too late for the unhatched eggs unfortunately but I'll know for again
I have a 40W bulb on them the whole time it works as heat too as i don't have a heated room they are going well now thankfully
Because of the failed batch i left them in longer than I should have and my 2 batches are out of sinc now so I'll have to give my last feed from the other batch about 8-10 hrs after hatching i know they won't have as much protein but will they still be small enough for the fry to eat?

Inconsistent temps can also effect hatching so if the room is that cold, I'd use an adjustable heater to keep things stable more than an incondescent light.
As for will they still be small enough? It will depend on how small your fry are. Younger breeders tend to make smaller eggs which makes smaller babies. Another possibility is that those are the runts which you will ( or should be ) be culling anyway so if they don't eat, they will die a more natural death. It happens in the wild that way as well.

 

[conor]

WTF!!!!!
I have more eggs again already!!!!
I know that by removing the eggs they spawn again quicker but this is crazy its only been 8 days from the last spawn and she done it on the plant on my driftwood again instead of the pot that i have in there now.

I only have 1 hatching tank set up and my fry are in it i don't want to introduce more egg's until the fry are big enough to move what should I do? Thinking of letting them try raise them them self but that will delay further spawns.

What do you recommend?
I have another small tank but not set up yet im waiting for an 8 outlet pump to arrive (probably monday) so i can get sponge filters etc working in it

 

[Andy Sager]

WTF!!!!!
I have more eggs again already!!!!
I know that by removing the eggs they spawn again quicker but this is crazy its only been 8 days from the last spawn and she done it on the plant on my driftwood again instead of the pot that i have in there now.

I only have 1 hatching tank set up and my fry are in it i don't want to introduce more egg's until the fry are big enough to move what should I do? Thinking of letting them try raise them them self but that will delay further spawns.

What do you recommend?
I have another small tank but not set up yet im waiting for an 8 outlet pump to arrive (probably monday) so i can get sponge filters etc working in it

Okay, everybody from the old "Wigglers at last!!!" thread, let's give Conor the ol' Angelfish breeder's cheer. You ready?......
"More tanks, More tanks, you need more tanks!!!!! .
Welcome Conor, to becoming a real fish breeder.

Okay, so now that I have had my fun here's what I would do:
If the other tank is clean, use it. You really don't need a sponge filter going until the fry are free swimming. Just the airstone is sufficient until that point.
Hatching the eggs can be done in anything that holds water and doesn't contaminate the water. Many pro breeders hatch out the eggs in gallon jars then transfer the fry once they are free swimming. It sounds like this is going to be your best option. You really don't want to mix multiple spawns at different stages of development together. I just mix, when I have no extra tanks, spawns that were laid... hatched actually, within a day or so of each other. This way, the fry are all on equal grounds.
Once the fry are free swimming, they are then transferred to another tank set up with a sponge filter.

Hope this helps

 

[conor]

More tanks more tanks lol thats been going through my head for a while already, so far i have 3×3 ft and 2 × 1.5 ft

I will clean out that other small tank now and put them into it

Now 2 other quick questions
Is it normal to be taking out some dead fry at each feeding? They look like they haven't been getting fed or don't know how to eat and there almost still like wigglers on the bottom of the tank b4 they go i have been thinking they are just the weak ones that should be going anyway

Also with the amount of feeds of BS will the water not be getting salty? I do 10-20% water changes daily (from cleaning up excess BS) but still imagine that the water has to be getting salty should i be using a BS net then transfer to fresh water and baste from there?

P.s. how was your trip andy? did you find any nice stock when you were away?

 

[Andy Sager]

More tanks more tanks lol thats been going through my head for a while already, so far i have 3×3 ft and 2 × 1.5 ft

I will clean out that other small tank now and put them into it

Now 2 other quick questions
Is it normal to be taking out some dead fry at each feeding? They look like they haven't been getting fed or don't know how to eat and there almost still like wigglers on the bottom of the tank b4 they go i have been thinking they are just the weak ones that should be going anyway

Also with the amount of feeds of BS will the water not be getting salty? I do 10-20% water changes daily (from cleaning up excess BS) but still imagine that the water has to be getting salty should i be using a BS net then transfer to fresh water and baste from there?

P.s. how was your trip andy? did you find any nice stock when you were away?

If you want to raise quantity and make some money at this, I learned this system back in the 1960s. It's working today just as it did for me back then. It requires 4 tanks minimum for every 1 pair of Angels. 1 tank is for the breeders, 2 tanks ( I use 10 gals) are for hatching eggs and raising the fry for the first 30 days +/- and the last tank is a larger 75- 100 gal tank for growouts. This may require 2 growout tanks depending on the size of the spawn. Cramping the fish will reduce growth rate. This is where the "breeder's cheer" came from. People think you can raise multiple spawns or different aged spawns together in a smaller tank. I say, it's a bad idea. Keep them separate and growing as best possible. Different aged fry will almost always sacrifice the smaller fish. That's nature at work.

Brine shrimp: Baby brine shrimp should be rinsed off in fresh water prior to being fed to your fry. NONE of the brine shrimp water should be going into the fry tanks as it can contain bacteria and other unwanteds that can, in time, pollute the tank. I've noticed that some brine shrimps nets are actually allowing more of the nuplii to get through so I suggest you try to get a net made by the manufacturer of your shrimp eggs so that it works with the size shrimp eggs you are using.

Dead fry: Yes, this is normal. Consider this: in animals that produce multiple offspring at a single time, the general rule is that only 10 percent of the offspring will survive to become breeding adults. So what happens to the other 90%? They die! Most of it is genetics but some of it is also predation. Since we have taken away the predation by animals other than siblings, by tank rearing, we have increased that 10% margin substantially. There is a draw back to this however. In nature, it's survival of the fittest. In a fish tank, it's survival of the how many we want to keep. This means that the weaker fish may have been kept by a previous breeder and has formed bloodlines containing weaker fish genetics so you are going to be losing some on a more continual basis. This is why I prefer to buy and sell only larger sized fish. My smalls are nickle body size because dime size fish still, in my experience, exhibit a higher rate of unexplained deaths. Even the larger size fish still die but again, in my experience, the dividing line from a lot to a few seems to be at about that nickle size. ( FYI: In one of the stores I visited on my trip, I was telling the owner of what I was doing and she was telling me how she too has seen the Angelfish go from hardly sturdy stock to weak fragile fish now. This all goes back to what the breeders used as their breeding stock.) In some strains, the fry start out too small to eat newly hatched brine shrimp so if there is a lot of these in your spawns, I would start them off with infusoria or another smaller food for a week prior to starting them on BBS. If you are seeing some, but not a lot of these smaller fry, I'd sacrifice them as part of the 90%. They will probably be dead before being salable anyway.

As for my trip, IT WAS GREAT!!! : I acquired some new plant stock as well as information. The Angelfish situation is.... how can I say this nicely?.....Crappy? I went to one of the bigger stores in Alabama and when I asked for colors I was looking for, the answer I got was " We haven't seen those fish in years around here." In another store, I went back to it on my return trip because I was told they were getting new stock in during the time I would be away so I went back to check it out. Besides some larger Silver & arble Angels, someone had traded in a pearlscale. The smaller fish looked like they were clamping up and the choice for mediums were Koi. Just Koi. No other colors. I was told that THIS was all that was available. We gotta change that. So I came home with no new fish. : I was also looking for some Bettas ( What can I say, I LOVES me some doubletail veiltail Bettas ) but there were no DTs and the females they did have available were just too big even for the males they were selling. I took that as a sign to not do bettas for now.

So it's back to making quality Angels for me.

Hope this helps

 

[conor]

Well my new 8 outlet pump arrived today and i have it all set up, i can already see a major difference in the quality of my tanks and hopefully the hatching rate of my BBS
b4 i was running a 2 outlet with them split to 4 different filters/air stones there was always a lot of BBS and eggs over the bottom after feeding. Now there's next to none partly thanks to the filter working right and i guess because the fry were very hungry as my BBS had a bad hatch rate yesterday because the air stone was blocking up or not even on both bottle's
My second spawn has also survived a little torture i had a small tank set up for them yesterday the temp was perfect on the thermometer so i moved them over too it as i was dropping them in i noticed the nice warm water at the top and getting very cold at the bottom I had no airstone or filter in to move the water and a dodgy heater so i changed the heater dropped in a large airstone and rushed back to work, when i came bake the water temp had went up to 90+. I was sure that i would loose them but today the seem to be ok and there eyes have emerged so fingers crossed
This is a fast learning curve I'm on and thankfully these fish seem to be hardy enough to put up with my amateur start out and set up building but I'm loving it and finally set up and ready for spawn #4

 

[PoppaRyno]

Following. Keep up the good work. You'll find, as fast as they can spawn, you won't be an amateur for long. Lol

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Andy Sager]

Ok, NOW you are a breeder!

 

[Andy Sager]

Well my new 8 outlet pump arrived today and i have it all set up, i can already see a major difference in the quality of my tanks and hopefully the hatching rate of my BBS
b4 i was running a 2 outlet with them split to 4 different filters/air stones there was always a lot of BBS and eggs over the bottom after feeding. Now there's next to none partly thanks to the filter working right and i guess because the fry were very hungry as my BBS had a bad hatch rate yesterday because the air stone was blocking up or not even on both bottle's
My second spawn has also survived a little torture i had a small tank set up for them yesterday the temp was perfect on the thermometer so i moved them over too it as i was dropping them in i noticed the nice warm water at the top and getting very cold at the bottom I had no airstone or filter in to move the water and a dodgy heater so i changed the heater dropped in a large airstone and rushed back to work, when i came bake the water temp had went up to 90+. I was sure that i would loose them but today the seem to be ok and there eyes have emerged so fingers crossed
This is a fast learning curve I'm on and thankfully these fish seem to be hardy enough to put up with my amateur start out and set up building but I'm loving it and finally set up and ready for spawn #4

Just an FYI, they make airstones for saltwater use and they are usually made of glass instead of sandstone and less likely to clog or disintegrate quickly. You can also use an open airline in your brine shrimp ( which is what I do) as long as you use a gang valve to regulate the airflow and position it in the hatchery so that the water in your jars moves in a circular motion.

 

[conor]

I think my gang valve was part of my problem i was constantly having to adjust it closing one off more and more to get the other one to blow air thankfully its not something I have to worry about any more and i have a stock of spare airstone's in case i have a problem again
Also got my 3rd 3ft tank set up last night and cycling so should be ready when these 2 spawns out grow the other one i would love to get a 4 or 5ft but they won't fit in my car to get home and my house is raised and im kindo worried about it going through the floor with the weight lol (any one heard of this happening before or any way to check if it is safe) i have strong tiles under the legs of all my tanks just to spread the weight a bit more

 

[Andy Sager]

I think my gang valve was part of my problem i was constantly having to adjust it closing one off more and more to get the other one to blow air thankfully its not something I have to worry about any more and i have a stock of spare airstone's in case i have a problem again
Also got my 3rd 3ft tank set up last night and cycling so should be ready when these 2 spawns out grow the other one i would love to get a 4 or 5ft but they won't fit in my car to get home and my house is raised and im kindo worried about it going through the floor with the weight lol (any one heard of this happening before or any way to check if it is safe) i have strong tiles under the legs of all my tanks just to spread the weight a bit more

Weight from the tanks can be a serious issue. When you say your house is "Raised", what do you mean? If there is any way to get under the area of the floor you are keeping the tanks on and adding cinder block or other structural supports under there, I'd do it. I live in an older mobile home and was unable to get to the right spots which was why I set thing up outside. I supported the porches with block under where I had my tanks. No issues that way. Wood floors can eventually warp which can, if warped enough, cause the tanks to crack if they are glass. I suggest you don't take this issue lightly.

 

[conor]

I was afraid you would say something like that.
The house is on wooden stumps about 2-3ft of the ground and about 4 ft apart, like a wooden weather board house but has all brick exterior walls I've never been underneath it but have looked in. We have alot of redback spiders about and that would be an ideal place for them to live we have an understanding that I'll leave them alone and they leave me alone so i don't want to move in on there turf lol
The tanks are next to the porch that is solid and next to another exterior wall but i guess i will have to venture in and check how close they are to supports and add some if they are too far away

 

[Andy Sager]

Don't shoot the messenger. Just trying to help you avoid a potential mess.

 

[conor]

Yeahhhh!

I have more free swimmers ☺
And mammy is starting to look plump again this really is like an unstoppable train chuga chuga choo choo