Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
Okay, let's address these issues:
Wiggles on the 5 gal tank floor: DO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! until they become free swimming. ( You can look at them through the magnifying glass. That's okay ) Don't sweat the dead eggs or anything. The fry don;t need to be attached to anything to survive. As I explained, that was a natural mechanism to keep them from getting washed away in the rivers. I have now 2 bottles of fry that went through exactly what you are describing. I did NOTHING!!!!! but look at them daily to make sure they were wiggling (unfortunately, they still have to become free swimming and just because they are wiggling now does not guarantee they will make that next step. This is a natural occurance. Statistically, with animals that produce multiple young, usually only 10 % of those young survive to become breeding adults. They die from predation, disease, genetics, etc. Nothing you do will change the fact that you are going to lose some of these fry. Thankfully, the predation percentage goes down in a fish tank HOWEVER, you also lose fry to their siblings. I suggest you get used to this fact cause it's gonna happen. )
Wigglers in the main tank:
Algae is a plant and as such does not harm fish or fry. It might look nasty but it is actually filtering your water so it's no big deal that it's there. The fry can be sensitive to water changes at this point so NO WATER CHANGES in tanks where the wigglers are is my best suggestion.
Dividers are great for keeping the big fish from going through them but these fry, once they become free swimming, will be small enough to go through the divider and get eaten by the other fish. My suggestion, remove the other fish to reduce the risk. Once these fry have become stabilized and are eating on their own, move the parents to their own breeding tank before they spawn again. Pull the eggs before they hatch. Return your barbs to the display tank after the Angels are out of it.
You should be turning off the HOB on this tank cause no matter how much filtering you put on the intake, if you do it right for the fry, you'll "burn out your filter's motor" ( That's a quote I got from the Hagen Company's Tech). If you do it wrong, the fry will get sucked up into the filter. Sponge filters eliminate this from happening. That's why EVERY serious fish breeder only uses sponge filters in fry tanks. And since they make different sizes of sponge filters, you can use the correct size for the tank size. Keep in mind, I used 1 filter rated for 20-30 gal tanks in the 10 gal tanks (the fry tank & the breeder tank) and multiple filters in the growout tanks. Even with the right sized filter, you want extra protection when you have a lot of fish growing up in a tank. PLUS, if something goes wrong with one filter( i.e. airline comes off) , you'd have another one or 2 going to support the tank until you fix the problem.
Now, while I appreciate the genius label , I can't take all the credit for these instructions. My Mentor was a GENIUS and most of my instructions come from him and are over 40 years old. You see, THAT was how we produced fish for his store and I continued on to produce quantities of fish for other shops and wholesalers. It's why I am not satisfied when only 1 fry lives out of 100 possible fry. If the fish were cared for properly, the results should be those 100 fry. And here it is, 40 years later, and these methods still work and produce fish in mass and in massive quantity. What you need to realize is that when you are working with younger breeders, it takes a number of spawns to get high hatch results. I'm not talking about 3 or 4 spawns, I'm talking dozens sometimes. So if you can learn how to keep a few fish alive in the beginning, you just do the same thing on a larger scale when you have more fry. That's the beauty of Angels, they give you multiple chances to get it right. It's up to you to get it right as quickly as possible cause even with only a couple of pairs of fish, they can BURY you with fry! It literally takes 8 tanks to handle the fry from just 2 pairs of Angelfish. That's how many fry a solid pair of Angels can produce. And once they get going, there is very little time between spawns to rest.
I hope you realize that this is what you signed up for Breeding fish is work first then fun cause it's just repeat, repeat, repeat.
So enjoy your magnifying glass ( BTW, I use mine to look at the wigglers almost every time I pass the jars. I just love seeing wiggling. lol )
Wiggles on the 5 gal tank floor: DO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! until they become free swimming. ( You can look at them through the magnifying glass. That's okay ) Don't sweat the dead eggs or anything. The fry don;t need to be attached to anything to survive. As I explained, that was a natural mechanism to keep them from getting washed away in the rivers. I have now 2 bottles of fry that went through exactly what you are describing. I did NOTHING!!!!! but look at them daily to make sure they were wiggling (unfortunately, they still have to become free swimming and just because they are wiggling now does not guarantee they will make that next step. This is a natural occurance. Statistically, with animals that produce multiple young, usually only 10 % of those young survive to become breeding adults. They die from predation, disease, genetics, etc. Nothing you do will change the fact that you are going to lose some of these fry. Thankfully, the predation percentage goes down in a fish tank HOWEVER, you also lose fry to their siblings. I suggest you get used to this fact cause it's gonna happen. )
Wigglers in the main tank:
Algae is a plant and as such does not harm fish or fry. It might look nasty but it is actually filtering your water so it's no big deal that it's there. The fry can be sensitive to water changes at this point so NO WATER CHANGES in tanks where the wigglers are is my best suggestion.
Dividers are great for keeping the big fish from going through them but these fry, once they become free swimming, will be small enough to go through the divider and get eaten by the other fish. My suggestion, remove the other fish to reduce the risk. Once these fry have become stabilized and are eating on their own, move the parents to their own breeding tank before they spawn again. Pull the eggs before they hatch. Return your barbs to the display tank after the Angels are out of it.
You should be turning off the HOB on this tank cause no matter how much filtering you put on the intake, if you do it right for the fry, you'll "burn out your filter's motor" ( That's a quote I got from the Hagen Company's Tech). If you do it wrong, the fry will get sucked up into the filter. Sponge filters eliminate this from happening. That's why EVERY serious fish breeder only uses sponge filters in fry tanks. And since they make different sizes of sponge filters, you can use the correct size for the tank size. Keep in mind, I used 1 filter rated for 20-30 gal tanks in the 10 gal tanks (the fry tank & the breeder tank) and multiple filters in the growout tanks. Even with the right sized filter, you want extra protection when you have a lot of fish growing up in a tank. PLUS, if something goes wrong with one filter( i.e. airline comes off) , you'd have another one or 2 going to support the tank until you fix the problem.
Now, while I appreciate the genius label , I can't take all the credit for these instructions. My Mentor was a GENIUS and most of my instructions come from him and are over 40 years old. You see, THAT was how we produced fish for his store and I continued on to produce quantities of fish for other shops and wholesalers. It's why I am not satisfied when only 1 fry lives out of 100 possible fry. If the fish were cared for properly, the results should be those 100 fry. And here it is, 40 years later, and these methods still work and produce fish in mass and in massive quantity. What you need to realize is that when you are working with younger breeders, it takes a number of spawns to get high hatch results. I'm not talking about 3 or 4 spawns, I'm talking dozens sometimes. So if you can learn how to keep a few fish alive in the beginning, you just do the same thing on a larger scale when you have more fry. That's the beauty of Angels, they give you multiple chances to get it right. It's up to you to get it right as quickly as possible cause even with only a couple of pairs of fish, they can BURY you with fry! It literally takes 8 tanks to handle the fry from just 2 pairs of Angelfish. That's how many fry a solid pair of Angels can produce. And once they get going, there is very little time between spawns to rest.
I hope you realize that this is what you signed up for Breeding fish is work first then fun cause it's just repeat, repeat, repeat.
So enjoy your magnifying glass ( BTW, I use mine to look at the wigglers almost every time I pass the jars. I just love seeing wiggling. lol )