Wigglers At Last!!!!!

[oscarchic11]

Ok... thats what ill do then. Their second spawn is huge!!! They only lost maybe 15 eggs from the bunch!!! Day 3 as wigglers!!! So when/how do i introduce other foods 2 my other fry??? They are almost 3 weeks now... and looking more like angels every day!!! They have triangular fins now!!!

 

[Andy Sager]

Ok... thats what ill do then. Their second spawn is huge!!! They only lost maybe 15 eggs from the bunch!!! Day 3 as wigglers!!! So when/how do i introduce other foods 2 my other fry??? They are almost 3 weeks now... and looking more like angels every day!!! They have triangular fins now!!!

Hope you have big growout tanks. A spawn that size will need a lot of growing space to keep from getting overcrowded and/or stop growing.

You introduce other foods by adding them to what they are eating now and over the course of a week or so, use less old food and more new food in the mix. The fish will eventually just eat the new food. I tend to start the conversion as the fins start to sprout. By 21-28 days, they should be off BBS and onto growth foods.

 

[Andy Sager]

Update: no sign of any fry today :-( think mom&dad have eaten them :-(

If they were supposed to have hatched today, study the parents and see if they are paying attention to another area of the tank. That's usually a sign of " Hide the babies. "

 

[oscarchic11]

Hope you have big growout tanks. A spawn that size will need a lot of growing space to keep from getting overcrowded and/or stop growing.

You introduce other foods by adding them to what they are eating now and over the course of a week or so, use less old food and more new food in the mix. The fish will eventually just eat the new food. I tend to start the conversion as the fins start to sprout. By 21-28 days, they should be off BBS and onto growth foods.

I actually just have the 1 10g right now... and half of the 55g will be for grow out, maybe the 20g also if i move some fosh around...

 

[Andy Sager]

I actually just have the 1 10g right now... and half of the 55g will be for grow out, maybe the 20g also if i move some fosh around...

I believe we've gone over this before but 1/2 of a 55 for growing out a few hundred Angel fry is not a good setup. Spawns of that size will not grow well in tight quarters ( which is what 1/2 of a 55 would be. They need elbow room) and the food consumption necessary to raise that many fish will only cause you to do more water changes and disturb the parent's regimen to the point that they may stop breeding all together. You would be better off putting the pair in the 10 or 20 by themselves and opening up the entire 55 to grow out the fry. Keep in mind tho that if your spawns start ranging in the 300-500 fish range, your 55 is way undersized to grow out that many fish as well.
If you read Bob McCoy's recent experience with his skinny fish, they contracted a condition most likely caused by overcrowding ( a common symptom of the condition) and his fish were in a 75 gal tank. I can see you experiencing the same things all do to overcrowding.
That's the good and bad part to breeding Angelfish. Everybody wants to breed them but truly don't plan for the large amount of young that they have. They require a tremendous amount of tanks or tankspace to raise the young. There's just no way around that unless you reduce the amount of fry you try to raise. That means sacrificing portions of every spawn if you are short on tanks.

Sorry to sound like the grim reaper but this type of thing is why we have such poor quality fish on the market. The fry are not cared for properly so they don't develope correctly but the breeders keep selling whatever they have so stores are left with many "junk" fish. On my recent excurson to find Angels, I saw some tanks full of fish where the gill plates were missing, the fins were short or ragged and the bodies had notches in them. The shops had to pay for those fish but they surely won't get sold. Those fry should have been euthanized (IMPO) long before they came to market. In one store, I saw a tank of about 50 fish of which only maybe 10 were of saleable quality based on physical appearance. Many of those deformaties can be directly linked to overcrowding.

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now

 

[Karay]

We appreciate your input. As fish keepers/breeders we have a responsibility to the fish that we keep and raise. Thank you!

 

[oscarchic11]

When we go to CO we may stop to see a certain breeder up there who was gonna help me out with some tanks... i understand i need more space but seeing as my male is a rather large veil tail is the reason i elected to split the 55 instead of giving them the 20g... my little silver girl also lays easily twice as many eggs as my marble which i wasnt counting on...

 

[bob mccoy]

Amen brother !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[oscarchic11]

Lol but alas... due to lack of fundage and ppl with good credit we may not be able to go...

 

[Andy Sager]

We appreciate your input. As fish keepers/breeders we have a responsibility to the fish that we keep and raise. Thank you!

I appreciate the nod but I hope everyone understands what I am trying to do and say here. I recently went to a "local" ( Nothing is local to me! lol)pet store and saw tank after tank of fish the owner said he had to pay for and was frustrated by that. I meant fish with bent spines? What kind of responsible breeder sells fish with bent spines? They don't even qualify as freebies to make up for dead fish during shipping.
Transfer that to here and I've raised too many of these fish and I just know what happens when you cram too many Angel fry into too small a container... nothing good. I am all for people breeding these fish but it MUST be done responsibly if things are going to change.

There are many on this site who will lambast someone for keeping an Oscar in tanks less than 75 gals even when the fish is only a couple inches long only because of how large they grow. I don't want to get that crazy but I also don't want to see Angels being grown out in tiny tanks either. Maybe I need to qualify what "grow out" means. Based on my previous hatcheries as well as other hatchery standards, the tank should be large enough for all the fish in it to be of a natural size in a natural amount of time. In my case, I got my fish to Nickle body size in 10-12 weeks. (This was considered a reasonable timeframe based on how large a single fry would be if it were by itself in a large aquarium with no hinderences.) So when all the fish in the tank reached that size, they were not overcrowded. Now if you have a spawn of 300 fish, there is no way all those fish at nickle body size can fit into a 24"x12" or a 20"x 10" or a 36"x12" footprint. I used 75 gal tanks and vats for that many fish. My 75s were 48"Lx18"Wx 20"H and my vats were originally coffin liners so they were over 6' long. The fish need elbow room in order to grow. If they don't get it, parts of their bodies won't develop properly. People on here complained about my keeping my breeders in 10 gal tanks. Here's the reality, the fish didn't mind. But the fry did. I had to move large spawns sooner than small spawns just to keep them growing. Here's the worst part, as the breeders got older, the spawns got larger which brought about a whole new set of problems. Nothing is different between what I was doing on a large scale than what everyone here is doing on a small scale, The fish are the same fish and the spawning results will be the same results.

As I said before, I know it sounds cruel but if the home breeders reading this don't have a large enough tank to grow out the fish properly, it would be better ( IMO) to only keep whatever number of fry would fit their tanks and sacrifice the rest of the the spawn then try to raise them all. It makes no sense to raise 300 or 500 unhealthy fry when you can raise 25 or 50 or any other proper amount based on the tank size of healthy fish, especially if your goal is to just raise some Angelfish for your home tank.

I know it sounds like I am this crazy person standing on a soapbox but if we are going to change the status quo, everybody, or at least somebody has to make some noise. I can back up everything I say so I have no problem taking the microphone The mantra " More tanks, more tanks, I need more tanks" did not come from me joking around. It came from needing to move to a 3rd warehouse in less than 2 years because I was getting too many fish from my spawns. I said that phrase to my partner almost daily until I got more tanks, then more tanks then more tanks. Bottom line...Raising Angels takes a lot of tankspace. PERIOD. To me, it's like buying a car and not wanting to buy the gas. Don't buy the car then!!!!!! If you can't care for the fry properly, don't breed the fish or wait to breed them when you can do it properly.

That's all I'm saying

 

[bob mccoy]

TY andy well said.

 

[Babymama18301]

Woo I read this whole thread lots of notes!!! I think I can do it, and I got offered a 29g with iron strand for 20$ so I think my rams and kribis will go in the 29.

My plan for the angels is leave my marble one on her own with my rams and kribis like she always has been and get a couple more juvies and put them in the 36 bow and let them grow and see if any pair (the lfs said they'd buy back the ones that were left over) I've bred Gbrs, guppies, and mollies so this will be a fun experience for me. I am a very Patient person so i think ill do good. And i got a 40g empty breeder for the fry if it does work out. This is a great thread and lots of Information! I even got the ok from the boyfriend to get a lil thing going for the angel fry food if it does work out. But I was told this is the last tank I'm getting :-( because we already have more than enough.

 

[bob mccoy]

lol good luck . just look into his eyes and give him that look and say pleaseeee hunny. because if u read the last post from andy it take a lot of tanks. i have 22 set up and actually that's still not enough. i picked up 2 more 75s and 2 more 55s but i have to reseal them hence FREE. because with angels u will get around 100 to 300 or so eggs every 15 to 18 days if they get on a regular schedual. i alter my water changes as to seperate the egg laying times between pairs.

 

[Andy Sager]

I practice what I preach
Went to Petco today for their $1/ gallon sale and picked up 3-10 gals for another pair of fish ( WHEN I set up the pair.) GF saw them in the back seat of the car and said" Just where do you think you are putting those?????" My answer:
" For now dear, in storage " Just being prepared!
FYI: I've resealed one 10 gal, tested another 10 gal ( both almost 30 year old tanks) and will be testing & setting up my 40 gal for some more potential breeders I may have in a couple of weeks.
I went to one of the oldest stores in the area looking for Angels and the owner told me he hasn't had any in quite a while. Even the local breeder he had had given up. I told him what I was doing and he JUMPED at me and said " Tell me when you have them, I'll take all you can produce!" If he only knew how many I hope to be producing Good thing I have other outlets already chomping at the bit

 

[Andy Sager]

lol good luck . just look into his eyes and give him that look and say pleaseeee hunny. because if u read the last post from andy it take a lot of tanks. i have 22 set up and actually that's still not enough. i picked up 2 more 75s and 2 more 55s but i have to reseal them hence FREE. because with angels u will get around 100 to 300 or so eggs every 15 to 18 days if they get on a regular schedual. i alter my water changes as to seperate the egg laying times between pairs.

Bob, please remind us, You have 22 tanks, (which is not enough tanks), for how many pairs?

 

[bob mccoy]

8 pairs

 

[bob mccoy]

now 26 tanks

 

[Andy Sager]

8 pairs

Thanks Bob. So even if you divided the tanks evenly amongst those 8 pairs ( we'll just use the ones you have running at the moment for this example ) that's only 2.75 tanks per pair which as you've found out, isn't enough tanks. Considering the spawning frequency that Angels do get to, you should find that even 32 tanks with 8 of those tanks being 75 gals or larger and the others only needing to be 10-15 gal tanks might actually still be cutting it close. Say you dedicated 4 tanks per pair ( 3- 10/15 gal and 1- 75 or larger) and used the round robin method, by the time your second spawn is ready for the grow out tank, odds are the fish in the 75 are not ready for sale yet. I NEED MORE TANKS!!!! lol

The point of this excersise is to show that unless you have the space for multilple tanks of fry at different ages, the only way I know of keeping up is to sacrifice spawns. That's a hard reality but one none the less.

Just something a new breeder should consider before breeding Angelfish are great to breed but can bury you with babies.


(I'm almost talking myself OUT of doing this again )

 

[Karay]

Thanks Bob. So even if you divided the tanks evenly amongst those 8 pairs ( we'll just use the ones you have running at the moment for this example ) that's only 2.75 tanks per pair which as you've found out, isn't enough tanks. Considering the spawning frequency that Angels do get to, you should find that even 32 tanks with 8 of those tanks being 75 gals or larger and the others only needing to be 10-15 gal tanks might actually still be cutting it close. Say you dedicated 4 tanks per pair ( 3- 10/15 gal and 1- 75 or larger) and used the round robin method, by the time your second spawn is ready for the grow out tank, odds are the fish in the 75 are not ready for sale yet. I NEED MORE TANKS!!!! lol

The point of this excersise is to show that unless you have the space for multilple tanks of fry at different ages, the only way I know of keeping up is to sacrifice spawns. That's a hard reality but one none the less.

Just something a new breeder should consider before breeding Angelfish are great to breed but can bury you with babies.

(I'm almost talking myself OUT of doing this again )

Now that was one of the parts of the equation that was bothering. To me I felt that since the babies spent the same if not more time in the grow out tanks then there should be more grow out tanks then the 10gal rearing tanks. I have two grow out tanks per pair with my 3 10gal and I find that not to be enough grow outs. I had to split my last spawn into 3 30gal just to give them the elbow room. My big issue is I only have one lfs that is willing to purchase from home breeders so I'm relying on private sale. I get more $ for them but they take longer to go out the door. The joys of just starting. Takes a bit to earn credibility.

 

[bob mccoy]

well i talked it over with the wife and we are building a garage this summer so i will be expanding out to there . so now i can get all the other tanks out of storage .FINALLY!!!