Wigglers At Last!!!!!

[Mr Fisher]

Well, I was going to post a somewhat bragadocius comment but thought it better to post a learning post instead.

To all those out there trying to breed Angelfish and not having success, please read through this entire post again. Everything you need to know has been discussed in it by not only myself but other breeders having success. It really isn't a hard thing to do and I'll explain why in a minute.

This thread is a culmination of over 40+ years of experience in breeding and keeping Angels. That's just my experience so add up all the other contributors in this post and you have a huge wealth of knowledge at your keyboard. USE IT!!!!

Okay, to my point: I left my entire fish stock in the hands of my roommate who the last time she did anything with fish, was when we were in high school and she watched over my collection while I was on vacation. That was 35+ years ago. So to say she has no real experience in keeping fish would be an understatement. Agree? Today, I went out to look over my fish tanks since I really haven't paid them much mind since returning, due to illness. Now bare in mind that they were given a routine feeding for the past 2 1/2 weeks that was 1/2 of the normal feeding I use when home and no water was changed, temperatures adjusted or any other maintenance was performed over that time period. I looked through the algae filled glass ( in areas that were not covered in algae yet) and saw 1 pair with free swimming fry, 1 pair with wigglers and 1 pair with eggs. How can that be when we are always preaching maintenance and working on our tanks etc???? The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. ( Sorry, had a Bob Dylan flashback ) The answer is leave them alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Each pair is in it's own tank, not community tanks. Each tank is maintained the same way. Each tank provides the fish with the security, the atmosphere, the ambiance, the correct water and a place to spawn.
So if you are still having problems with your fish breeding, READ through this thread and fix it. Remember, I just had 3 pairs of fish spawn for someone who knows far less than you. See, it's not really that hard.

There's an old expression that goes "It's rarely the machine, it's usually the mechanic." Translated that means, the problem is rarely the fish. The problem is the way the fish are being kept.


I hope this helps somebody

It did help. All your wisdom has. My silver pair spawned last night. All I did was leave em be for a month or so and id a bigger water change the other day.

 

[Andy Sager]

So I have a question. My angels are on their sixth spawn. The first five times I did not intervene because I wanted them to get parenting practice, however they keep laying eggs on the intake of my power filter =[ I got them some new slate hoping they might move them once they hatch. I also removed all of the other fish to a separate tank to lower stress. Does anyone have an idea on what to do that might convince them to move the eggs/ spawn on slate the next time?

There are a couple of issues in your comment I'd like to address. Angelfish ( and most fish BTW) do not practice at parenting. Some do it right from the start and some never do it right at all. It's up to you as the aquarist as to the end result of the spawn. If you do the best things for the spawn, the spawn survives, otherwise, it's results are marginal at best. I pulled a spawn from a guaranteed first time Male spawner coupled with 3rd time spawning female. I know these counts to be true because these fish were too young to spawn when I got them to raise. Because I put the eggs in the best conditions for hatching, I had an approx. 90% hatch out from this spawn. No practice necessary.

As to your filtering issue, this has been discussed multiple times within the thread. I suggest you read through it again to get the answer To quote my Mentor " There are no shortcuts when it comes to successfully breeding fish. You either do it right or you do it wrong." I could just give you the answer but who knows what else you might learn about your setup by reading through the post. I know this is a long thread but most of my breeding books I used to learn from were 2 times as long or longer than this post. It will do you good I'm sure
Here's a hint tho, if you don;t want them spawning on your HOB filter, don't use one

Happy reading

 

[Xxsurdocxx]

I want my angels to raise their fry. In my past experience, with a young breeding pair, it takes a few tries to raise their babies without conflict ( eating fry, letting other fish eat the fry etc). However, I have never had a pair that spawned on the filter intake. I do not want to replace the filter with a sponge filter during hatching because the angels will see it as a stressful situation and eat the fry. I am (BTW) reading through the thread but with a full time and a part time job, and a young child, its hard to read it all at once so forgive me for my ignorance. Im really just asking if there is a way to save these wigglers or am I in the wrong place for help?

 

[Andy Sager]

I want my angels to raise their fry. In my past experience, with a young breeding pair, it takes a few tries to raise their babies without conflict ( eating fry, letting other fish eat the fry etc). However, I have never had a pair that spawned on the filter intake tube. I would normally install a sponge filter but I do not want to make the fish think that I am a threat to the wigglers. I would like to know how to get my angels to spawn on their slate instead. I would like to point out that I am here for advice, not criticism. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Please don't take my post as criticism as it was not meant to be. I have addressed many issues on this thread when it comes to successfully breeding and raising Angelfish and their fry. Angels pick the item that most matches their needs for spawning. Sometimes that's even the glass wall of the tank. You can't MAKE them switch from one thing to another without removing the item you want them to switch from. Within the thread you will find better alternatives.
As for wanting the fish to raise their fry, what they spawn on has no real effect on your success at this. Again, some fish get it from the start, some don't. ( I recently pulled a plastic plant out of my breeder's tank and put it into a bucket of their tank water along with the pair while I stripped down the entire tank. When I reset the tank, I put the plant back and acclimated the pair into this new water and once they calmed down from the move, I saw them paying special attention to the plant. Upon closer inspection, their wigglers were still attached to that plant. They continued caring for them from that point.) You'll find that conditions in the tank change over the time between the first few spawns. THAT'S why the fry survive in later spawns. Fry eating is a protective measure. Once again, if the situation isn't right, the spawn does not survive.
I truly encourage you to read through the thread as this issue also has been previously discussed.

 

[Andy Sager]

I want my angels to raise their fry. In my past experience, with a young breeding pair, it takes a few tries to raise their babies without conflict ( eating fry, letting other fish eat the fry etc). However, I have never had a pair that spawned on the filter intake. I do not want to replace the filter with a sponge filter during hatching because the angels will see it as a stressful situation and eat the fry. I am (BTW) reading through the thread but with a full time and a part time job, and a young child, its hard to read it all at once so forgive me for my ignorance. Im really just asking if there is a way to save these wigglers or am I in the wrong place for help?

I am not thinking of you as ignorant. Far from it. An ignorant person wouldn't be here looking for help I'm just trying to get you to understand that all these issues have been discussed previously so there is no need to wait for one of us to answer you. It's within the thread. To compare, it's like the first time you drove a car. Did you read the manual first or get behind the wheel first? My driver's ed course started with the book not the car My Mentor did the same to me with fish breeding. This is why I can answer so many questions.

To answer your edited part of the post, the best chance you have of saving this spawn is to turn off the HOB.
As for your time constraints, breeding fish can be very time consuming and possibly not the best thing for you to do if you have such limited time. Just my opinion of course . I refer you back to my Mentor's quote" " There are no shortcuts when it comes to successfully breeding fish. You either do it right or you do it wrong."
The good part to breeding Angels is that they give you many chances to get it right. The loss of a spawn should be used as nothing but a learning lesson

 

[delfisherman]

So my 10g baby tanks arent working and got some gallon jars and want to make baby jars. Where so you get the foam pads from and what about heating?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Andy Sager]

So my 10g baby tanks arent working and got some gallon jars and want to make baby jars. Where so you get the foam pads from and what about heating?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

I'm not sure why you are having such issues with the tanks but we can discuss that later if you'd like.

For my indoor 1 gal hatching bottles ( and 2 1/2 gal tanks) I use the small 50 watt Tetra heaters from Walmart. They are big enough to heat the bottles and preset to approx. 78 degrees. I keep the room air about 76 in the winter and 78 in the summer so they aren't trying to keep that water warm against much colder air temps. If that's your issue, I suggest using either a towel or styro insulator to keep the cold air away from the bottles.
As for filters, I suggest that you don't need them in the bottles. By the time the eggs hatch, there should have been no significant changes in the water chemistry to warrant a filter. Once the fry have become free swimming and have been fed for 2 or 3 days, they should be being placed into a larger filtered tank ( like a 10 gal ) and getting sponge filters for them is easy. Just upgrade the heater wattage for the larger amount of water and you should be fine.
My hatching bottles consist of just an airline with airstone held down by the slate the eggs were laid on and the heater behind the slate. ( You can see a drawing of the positioning of everything in my albums) And I use a piece of aluminum foil as a lid so I can seal the top as best as possible. A pic of my setup is somewhere back in this thread.

While I have kept fry in the bottles for way too long, I did have some extra deaths from doing this. (The bigger fry ate the smaller fry cause the smaller fry had no where to hide) I do not recommend doing it this way. Get them out of the bottles and spread out A.S.A.P.

Hope this helps

 

[delfisherman]

For some reason we are just losing batches. I am using 10g witha heater set at 78 with meth blue and an air stone then once they become wigglers i put carbon in and a sponge filter. Once that happens ill start water changes. I know why i lost my second to last batch because my air way too much and the filter was too strong. This time they became wigglers and then the next day they were all dead.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Andy Sager]

For some reason we are just losing batches. I am using 10g witha heater set at 78 with meth blue and an air stone then once they become wigglers i put carbon in and a sponge filter. Once that happens ill start water changes. I know why i lost my second to last batch because my air way too much and the filter was too strong. This time they became wigglers and then the next day they were all dead.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

May I suggest, have a sponge filter going all the time and add a second airline with the airstone to blow in front of the eggs. You don't need massive water movement going through the sponge filter when the fish are that small. Also, if you use a cycled sponge filter ( one that has been running in an established tank) as long as the PH in the hatching tank is not too far under 7.0, the filter will be cycled so no need to worry about pollution unless you severely over feed and not change water.

As for when they become free swimming and die off immediately, more often than not, it's from a dramatic change from wiggler water to free swimming water. I'm not a big proponent on larger water changes for the first week or so after free swimming. At most, I only replace the amount of water I siphoned out while cleaning out uneaten food. In a 10 gal, that's maybe 1/2 of 1% of volume, if that much. But that's daily. I like to get the fish eating and swimming around before I subject them to larger water changes. (10%-15% weekly)

There is another possibility, while remote, that it's genetic. These fry were not destined to survive no matter what you did. It's not frequent, and it's repeated with subsequent spawns, but with the mixture of genetics in today's fish, you can get a bad mix of genes that won;t allow for the fry to survive. If this pair has had other spawns that survived, however, this is not the reason.

The bottom line is if this is happening to all your spawns from different pairs, it's something either in your water or your set up that's wrong. Considering that it takes a lot of air to overdo a sponge filter, I find it difficult to believe that that was the reason the other fry died. I'd try NOT changing the water and just use the carbon to remove the blue. Have the sponge filter going in the tank and use the second line for the eggs. The amount of air you have going over the eggs is just about what you need going through your sponge filter. Remember, in colder water, the amount of bubbles needed to oxygenate the water decreases and needs to be increased when dealing with hotter temps. Water at 78 degrees is not that hot so it doesn't need massive bubble action

Hope this helps

 

[Mr Fisher]

I think I'm going to sell this silver pair. She had maybe 100 eggs and I've got 50 or so in my little jar that made it. I don't want to breed silvers but it feels good knowing I can do it now.

 

[Andy Sager]

I think I'm going to sell this silver pair. She had maybe 100 eggs and I've got 50 or so in my little jar that made it. I don't want to breed silvers but it feels good knowing I can do it now.

If these are not the newer Pearl scaled variety or wide finned type and are closer to the wild forms of Silvers, these may be a good pair to hold on to and use to reset bloodlines down the road. All lines after a while can use some good old wild blood in them to fix the genetic mutations that fooling around with the gene pool ( that we do) creates. Since all strains originated with wild silvers somewhere in time, silver blood is the only thing that can really do this.

Just my thoughts

 

[Mr Fisher]

If these are not the newer Pearl scaled variety or wide finned type and are closer to the wild forms of Silvers, these may be a good pair to hold on to and use to reset bloodlines down the road. All lines after a while can use some good old wild blood in them to fix the genetic mutations that fooling around with the gene pool ( that we do) creates. Since all strains originated with wild silvers somewhere in time, silver blood is the only thing that can really do this.

Just my thoughts

pretty sure these are the one's with little wild blood. I'll snap a pic in just a second

 

[Mr Fisher]

Here they are

Please pardon my cloudy water. I just turned the HOB back on after I swapped slates

 

[Andy Sager]

Here they are

Please pardon my cloudy water. I just turned the HOB back on after I swapped slates

Yeah, these don't look too wildish. If you don't know for sure, I'd say "Okay, sell them." When the time comes, you can get known wild fish or F1 generation wild fish to add to the blood line.

 

[delfisherman]

So while on a business trip in conneticut i found an amazing store and am bringing home some new angels. Im bringing home 2 blue smokeys and 2 half blacks. I cant wait to have them grow

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Autumnsky]

So while on a business trip in conneticut i found an amazing store and am bringing home some new angels. Im bringing home 2 blue smokeys and 2 half blacks. I cant wait to have them grow

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Where are the pics? Doesn't happen if there aren't pics, lol!

 

[Andy Sager]

So while on a business trip in conneticut i found an amazing store and am bringing home some new angels. Im bringing home 2 blue smokeys and 2 half blacks. I cant wait to have them grow

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

I'm partially jealous. Next to the true Altum, 1/2 blacks are my favorite variety of Scalare. Good luck with them. Pics would definitely feed my soul

 

[delfisherman]

So here you go after 7 hours in a bag and now relaxing and hungry in the tank before they go into my 40b growout. The little angel is one of my 2 that ive ever been able to grow from my breeders. But these are beautiful fish

Sent from my SM-G900V using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks
Just a FYI, if you can darken up the bottom some, the black should get more more intense and the silver half of the fish should really stand out.

 

[Mr Fisher]

Purchased a very nice 8'X8' storage building yesterday. I think I may have a free wall for tanks. Been sitting outside pondering how I can most effectively use my extra space.