Wigglers 2: Birth of a hatchery & everything Angels

[Andy Sager]

They shall swim for ya sir [emoji38]
I wish I studied the chemistry books more cause I had some thoughts in my head about the ammonia problem, but just can't explain it properly? So, I will just like to ask a question, what would or how ammonia would form, and what conditions , since it is a bacteria??? If that's correct?
When ammonia rises does it dissipate naturally or does it change form , liquid,vapor to gas, or solid states.
My thoughts are that somehow, due to building design, air flow, and accumulation, and constant water source, from the Aquariums and airration of multi tanks via bubblers, can the ammonia be vaporizing in the air from the tanks and falling back down onto the tanks, but I think unlikely if you change water frequently :/ like I'm sure the way you do!
And I also thought, man when I use Prime to dechlorinates the water it has a bad odour from the chemical smell in it. I just thought that the senses we already have should give us some better clues , if its chemical use in more confined space?
My last thought would be water drainage, plumbing, or and area where ammonia can be concentrated on or in?
Seems like the source is produced inside and tends to harbour around as we know already. In an enclosure ventilation is key IMO:/...and moisture. If you have access to a dehumidifier unit, you can test the water coming from the over flow and see???[emoji12]

Sorry if I was babbling on about nothing, and if it helps in any way, I mean you Andy, it would give me great pleasure to ever help you out sir.

As for my black Angel spwan I think it was a bust, they could be egg eaters as I noticed the female as she pooped , it looked white in color, I think that's what happened. Next time its artificially hatching for sure, can't wait to try it. I'm just getting a feel for this pair and you've been bang in Andy, thanks!!!

Clem

Yeah, I wish I had paid more attention to more of the science than the biology of life. I would have figured this out sooner if I did ( I think. ) But, as it says in this article ( Water and air are all you need to make ammonia—one of world's most important chemicals ) "All you need is air and water to make ammonia" and I have plenty of both of those. The problem is definitely the ventilation but in order to have the room climate controlled and keep costs reasonable, I need to reduce ventilation and THAT my friend, seems to be the key to this whole thing. ( I told you all fish breeding isn't cheap. ) Then I found this article and blew my mind. (New catalyst uses light to convert nitrogen to ammonia) I have all these ingredients in my place. So it may not be the things in my place but the amount of surface areas in my place that is the problem when combined with the lack of ventilation.

So if you take this further into the steps, the presence of the ammonia may be the cause more than the ammonia itself as once you start biologically filtering it, it produces nitrates eventually and that level may have been the cause for my fry issues? Truth be told, I don't feel like testing it anymore. I have a better plan for the future and will just have to deal with the ammonia issue with air removal before it gets into the tanks at all.

As for the smell of PRIME, that's natural and more sulfur than ammonia and is normal for the product so not the source.

As for water in the drain lines, Not possible. I have every drain on a downward slope so no water stays in any pipe. ( Learned that trick a looooooong time ago. )

As for the Black Angel spawn, that can happen. But once you know that the pair is fertile, THEN you can let them do the parenting thing to see if they can do it. But keep this in mind: If you hatch out the eggs and get say, a 50% hatchout and the parents hatch the eggs and you get a much smaller hatch rate, you have to wonder just how "profitable" parent raising the fish really is.

 

[skylane]

Yeah, I wish I had paid more attention to more of the science than the biology of life. I would have figured this out sooner if I did ( I think. ) But, as it says in this article ( Water and air are all you need to make ammonia—one of world's most important chemicals ) "All you need is air and water to make ammonia" and I have plenty of both of those. The problem is definitely the ventilation but in order to have the room climate controlled and keep costs reasonable, I need to reduce ventilation and THAT my friend, seems to be the key to this whole thing. ( I told you all fish breeding isn't cheap. ) Then I found this article and blew my mind. (New catalyst uses light to convert nitrogen to ammonia) I have all these ingredients in my place. So it may not be the things in my place but the amount of surface areas in my place that is the problem when combined with the lack of ventilation.

So if you take this further into the steps, the presence of the ammonia may be the cause more than the ammonia itself as once you start biologically filtering it, it produces nitrates eventually and that level may have been the cause for my fry issues? Truth be told, I don't feel like testing it anymore. I have a better plan for the future and will just have to deal with the ammonia issue with air removal before it gets into the tanks at all.

As for the smell of PRIME, that's natural and more sulfur than ammonia and is normal for the product so not the source.

As for water in the drain lines, Not possible. I have every drain on a downward slope so no water stays in any pipe. ( Learned that trick a looooooong time ago. )

As for the Black Angel spawn, that can happen. But once you know that the pair is fertile, THEN you can let them do the parenting thing to see if they can do it. But keep this in mind: If you hatch out the eggs and get say, a 50% hatchout and the parents hatch the eggs and you get a much smaller hatch rate, you have to wonder just how "profitable" parent raising the fish really is.

I'm glad we're on the same page here, and thanks for that excellent comments and explanations. I'm learning Andy, but its fun my friend, still trying to use my brain!!!
As for the black spawn bust, I just need to when I go to hatch artificially, and remove eggs to jars, how do I keep the jar temp warm?
Put it back in the tank with jar???
Thanks

Clem

 

[Andy Sager]

I'm glad we're on the same page here, and thanks for that excellent comments and explanations. I'm learning Andy, but its fun my friend, still trying to use my brain!!!
As for the black spawn bust, I just need to when I go to hatch artificially, and remove eggs to jars, how do I keep the jar temp warm?
Put it back in the tank with jar???
Thanks

Clem

There's a couple of ways to warm an egg jar. 1- use a small heater. I use the Tetra small heaters for tanks up to 5 gals which I get at Walmart ( cause my LFS doesn't carry them.) If you use a 10 gal, only fill to 5 gallons and use a better quality heater as you will be filling the tank as the fry get growing
2- You can heat the water in a larger tank and put the egg jar in that tank as long as the water from the tank doesn't get into the jar. Just keep enough water in the tank so that the jar does not float. If the air temp is drastically cooler than the water tank, seal up the tank with some foil, clear saran wrap or something else that will not allow the heat to escape.
3- warm the air to the 78- 82 degrees so that the water in the jar does not get cooler than the air.

Any of those will do it.

 

[skylane]

There's a couple of ways to warm an egg jar. 1- use a small heater. I use the Tetra small heaters for tanks up to 5 gals which I get at Walmart ( cause my LFS doesn't carry them.) If you use a 10 gal, only fill to 5 gallons and use a better quality heater as you will be filling the tank as the fry get growing
2- You can heat the water in a larger tank and put the egg jar in that tank as long as the water from the tank doesn't get into the jar. Just keep enough water in the tank so that the jar does not float. If the air temp is drastically cooler than the water tank, seal up the tank with some foil, clear saran wrap or something else that will not allow the heat to escape.
3- warm the air to the 78- 82 degrees so that the water in the jar does not get cooler than the air.

Any of those will do it.

Great, I'm going to get some tile or slate, and Walmart is not bad for fish stuff too, prices are good even with low Canuck buck!!!
Just trying to keep busy when I can, but the Angel breeding is fun, it can just try your patience while learning! [emoji38]
So I'm going to need a couple of things, I'm going to clean our the Angels tanks , rearrange the furniture, so to speak and give them no plants to lay on, I'm going with slate or tile for them. Let's see how it goes and I think it may all come together next time I hope for a new spawn!!![emoji40]

Clem

 

[Andy Sager]

Great, I'm going to get some tile or slate, and Walmart is not bad for fish stuff too, prices are good even with low Canuck buck!!!
Just trying to keep busy when I can, but the Angel breeding is fun, it can just try your patience while learning! [emoji38]
So I'm going to need a couple of things, I'm going to clean our the Angels tanks , rearrange the furniture, so to speak and give them no plants to lay on, I'm going with slate or tile for them. Let's see how it goes and I think it may all come together next time I hope for a new spawn!!![emoji40]

Clem

While not the most enjoyable to look at, an Angel breeding tank doesn't need anything more than a sponge filter, heater, a plastic plant that is not a sword or other type that an angel can lay eggs on ( small needled or leaved plants are great for this) and the fish. Very basic and purely dedicated to the fish spawning and nothing else.

 

[Mr Fisher]

Moving fry today to the grow out tank. That pair I had with the gold produced some amazing fry. Most have gold running up the dorsal and a black and silver marble body pattern.

Hopefully they'll be sellable in a few weeks as the LFS is dry on angels.

 

[skylane]

Very interesting read on the ammonia using water and air, and the two methods electrons charging iron to bond the air and water molecules, and the other using light ! And how the importance of the stuff is to fertilize!!!

Clem

 

[Andy Sager]

After removing the other fish I had to "store" in the tank, I set up the cory tank with my 3 new males and 2 of my old females and came in this morning to a nice surprise. It's a small spawn compared to the much bigger spawn I had when I did it 1 on 1. I see the way the fish react to the eggs when they go over to them so I don't think the fish are eating the eggs but it may be that one of the new males was actually a female. The spawn size would be right for this little female ( approx 50 eggs) and I didn't think the larger females were actually ready to spawn yet. I just moved them all in there to condition them up and get them ready to spawn. So Ill give them another hour and if there are no new eggs, everybody comes out and the tank gets "blued"

Angel fry from the 3 spawns are still chugging along. 1 is being parent raised whie the other 2 are mixed in the 2 1/2. At this point, I just want swimmers to show my corrections are working. Anything after that would be a bonus.

 

[Tropical Aquarist]

Sweet! What kind of cories?

 

[Andy Sager]

Sweet! What kind of cories?

Albino Aneaus

 

[Tropical Aquarist]

Wigglers 2: Birth of a hatchery & everything Angels

Cool! Here's one of my Aeneus juveniles, at 10 weeks

 

[Andy Sager]

Well today was interesting... Can't say for sure that any of the 3 new Albino Cories are male but I can say 100% that at least 1 is a female. I put the 3 new cats by themselves after the spawn yesterday and today I found about another 50 eggs on an internal power filter head I had in the tank. Thankfully, because of where they were laid, I could move them in with the other eggs. So far, there is only 1 confirmed dead egg from the first part of the spawn. So this could be a nice turnout if the rest of them hatch out. I have removed all the bottom gravel, sand and plant litter as I could so I should be able to see the fry this time. Once I see them hatched, I'll return some live plants to the tank as a supplemental food source.

The second surprise came as I was taking pictures of the Guppies. I was down on my knee and noticed some Angelfish eggs on the sponge filter lift tube in a tank of "rejected" fish. The 2 in the tank had been the fish that were rejected by other potential mates and just put into this tank as I had nowhere else to put them. So who knows how long they had been spawning but they have been together for at least 2 months. The best part of this surprise is that it's a Silver Veil with a Black lace. So hopefully I will get some veils out of this pairing.

Sadly, I lost one of the new Angel spawns from yesterday and one from last week. This morning, the eggs were gone and this was from an old pair that has produced a number of quality fry so they definitely cannot be trusted with their eggs. What surprised me was the second lost spawn was actually the one that was being parent raised. I can never understand what possesses the fish to care for the eggs, tend to the fry for 5 days, clean away all the dead eggs days ago and then just eat them. They were there this morning but not tonight. The pair is back to acting as if the spawn doesn't exist and neither one ate tonight so they must be full from eating the fry. So I definitely need to get the Guppies out of the Angel row so I can start harvesting the spawns again. I'd rather lose them, if I'm in fact going to lose them, rather than having them eaten and I have no idea whether they were any good or not.

I finished up the air for the Guppy rack so tomorrow the fish need to be moved. Hopefully the other Angel spawns will still be there as 1 is the Red Cap' s, 1 is the Koi's and 1 is a Barred Marble. The air tested 0 for ammonia again this morning and the test fry are still going strong so I have hopes these current spawns will be okay. I'd hate to lose the spawns to the parents and not find out for sure.

Back on a cat post, the female Pleco has been seen in and out of the tube the past couple of days and the male has been more out in front of the tank so hopefully that's a sign they are getting ready again. At this point, I have most of the oldest spawn out of the tank but the last spawn is still in there and going strong. There's at least another 35-40 from that last spawn so if nothing else, I need some Angel wiggler tanks to put some Plecos in.

Lastly, the 1/2 Black fry are still in the big vat but I will be moving them soon. I don't see any real difference in the amount of actual 1/2 blacks from the spawn. There are still only 3 and that's not better than the original 6 had. But this is part of the thing about 1/2 Blacks. They are not your conventional Angelfish. I have some F1s from the 1/2 Black/ Zebra lace cross that are about 8 months old now so I will start playing with them to see if any of these crosses come with a better ratio of 1/2 Blacks.

I think that catches ya'll up.

 

[skylane]

Great news, I'm glad the guppy rack is done, and you got some new Angels to breed!

Clem

 

[Andy Sager]

With a certain amount of anxiety, anticipation,hope and my fingers crossed, I went over to the hatchery this morning hoping to see some swimming Angel fry and some hatched Cory eggs. I got half of what I wanted. The Angels I tested had the swimming fry. Since I mixed 2 spawns, I don't know what spawn is swimming or if it's both spawns but I knew the air was clean since these were spawned, the water in the hatch tanks was changed daily and so the answer to getting the Angels back in shape is more work than I was used to doing in the past. Then I walked over to the cory tank and sadly, all the eggs were fungused over. I'm not sure why this happened again but yesterday, I tested the water and it had some ammonia, nitrites AND nitrates in it and all I can figure is that the peroxide must have killed off some of the plants that were left in the tank and they were fouling the water as the plastic plants in the tank must have been housing some nitrifying bacteria which were killed off by the peroxide. I did a 50% water change yesterday with aged water but it obviously wasn't enough. There are a couple of other possibilities also as these were all untested males so that could have something to do with the result as well. You just don't know from 1 spawn. So I'll let them all just rest for a couple of weeks with a lot of good food and set up the known pair with a new male to see if anything changes. At least I do still have the 3 cories from the last spawn still doing good.

On another note, I was sadly disappointed with my large zebra lace veil female. I haven't had a spawn from her in a couple of months even tho I was sure I saw her showing tube a number of times. Now I know why. I watched her spawn last night and her eggs would not stick to the slate and she was eating them as they dropped off. So in the middle of all that, I switched the slates to one from a proven pair and after a few minutes, they continued to spawn on the new slate and only some of the eggs would stick to that one too so the issue seems to be with the female. This morning, the slate was cleaned off of eggs. Not sure I'm going to continue even trying with her anymore but she is a nice looking fish so

Now to get some other spawns from the other fish to make sure they are worth still breeding. I have a number of F1s that are almost ready to breed so my concentration may need to shift to them instead of the F0s.

 

[skylane]

I can certainly understand now Andy, as my two pairs of Angels, the black veil, and the gold and marble pair have also been a challenge. I've changed up tactics with them, I put some tile pieces in and removed the sword plant. It's really funny how these fish spawn, as I'm posting this now, I can see some action developing as I can see their tubes exposed and they seem to bit more active, as they weren't eating as much for a few days, but after some bloodworms today they gobbled it up!
I noticed in both tanks, the males were pecking at the tiles,and I wondered if the male does that in preparation for the spawn, or if both sexes do this prior to spawning? The behavioral patterns on Angels can be so different, from one personality to another!!![emoji40]

Clem

 

[Andy Sager]

I can certainly understand now Andy, as my two pairs of Angels, the black veil, and the gold and marble pair have also been a challenge. I've changed up tactics with them, I put some tile pieces in and removed the sword plant. It's really funny how these fish spawn, as I'm posting this now, I can see some action developing as I can see their tubes exposed and they seem to bit more active, as they weren't eating as much for a few days, but after some bloodworms today they gobbled it up!
I noticed in both tanks, the males were pecking at the tiles,and I wondered if the male does that in preparation for the spawn, or if both sexes do this prior to spawning? The behavioral patterns on Angels can be so different, from one personality to another!!![emoji40]

Clem

Yeah, these fish today can be real pieces of work. Usually, both parents will take part in the site cleaning but I have had some first time males not do anything then once the female is laying the eggs, they join in the process. It's like a light bulb goes off in their heads and they go " Hey wait!! I'm supposed to be doing something when you start laying eggs aren't I? " Then there was the other extreme when the one fish will keep the other from the eggs yet not pay any attention to the eggs. If you remember back a ways, I had that with the crazy 1/2 Black male. Thankfully now, he does not do that anymore. So the best you can hope for is actually watching them spawn to see what's happening and if everything is going correctly. I had a female laying dead eggs for a while and I wouldn't have known that had I not been watching. It's not typical but when you see the eggs coming out white, you know they are bad inside. I knew she needed to be changed for sure.

 

[skylane]

Yeah, these fish today can be real pieces of work. Usually, both parents will take part in the site cleaning but I have had some first time males not do anything then once the female is laying the eggs, they join in the process. It's like a light bulb goes off in their heads and they go " Hey wait!! I'm supposed to be doing something when you start laying eggs aren't I? " Then there was the other extreme when the one fish will keep the other from the eggs yet not pay any attention to the eggs. If you remember back a ways, I had that with the crazy 1/2 Black male. Thankfully now, he does not do that anymore. So the best you can hope for is actually watching them spawn to see what's happening and if everything is going correctly. I had a female laying dead eggs for a while and I wouldn't have known that had I not been watching. It's not typical but when you see the eggs coming out white, you know they are bad inside. I knew she needed to be changed for sure.

The fish have totally changed since maturing, and still newbies ,or not fertile, or the changes in tank moves could just be an adjustment, for keeper and fish!
I'm not liking the way the eggs look from blacks, as they seen to turn white or fungus hits them quick???
I'm hoping to have success in artificially hatching them if I ever get eggs, from them. The gold and marble pair seem to be just on holidays, relaxing...but I'm hoping they will give me some eggs too, but they are being slow, but the male marble shows complete dominance and the fold female is quiet and calm, lets see if they spawn, and which pair is the keeper!!![emoji38]

Clem

 

[Andy Sager]

The climb back to another step in the right direction. I pulled a spawn from the trio ( now more 1 male and 2 females than a breeding trio) the other day and just using peroxide on the eggs, I had a tremendous hatch today. Out of about 250-300 eggs, there were only 6 dead eggs that didn't hatch. The rest of the slate is a wiggling mass. Now, all I need is to make sure the ammonia level in the air doesn't build and the wigglers all swim. THAT would put the finishing touches on this whole experiment cycle and I will know for sure that I have the solutions for the problem. C'mon 6 days!!!

 

[Autumnsky]

Swim, swim, swim - Live, live, live!!!

 

[Bdonaldson]

Thats great news. Congratulations.

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