# First Time Breeding Angels - 8 Weeks!



## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Breeding and grow-out tanks are better bare-bottomed- easier to keep environment clean. Angel juveniles are like discus in that they need several protein feedings daily and this requires frequent water changes to keep tank clean.

For the Angels, you could add a breeding cone so that you have the ease of moving the spawn if needed. Sometimes they can spawn on surfaces that are not very practical- like the heater. 

For both, all you need is a sponge-filter for biological filtration because you are doing frequent water changes. With this, you are the mechanical filtration.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well the LFS store only had one sponge filter. I took filter floss and wrapped it around the intake tube of the HOB on the twenty, and I am getting ready to set up the 10 gallon, which is where I'll stick the sponge filter for now. 

I will keep with the bare bottoms for sure! My little one is getting ~85%-90% daily since she struggles to find food in the tank and leaves a mess!



Discusluv said:


> Breeding and grow-out tanks are better bare-bottomed- easier to keep environment clean. Angel juveniles are like discus in that they need several protein feedings daily and this requires frequent water changes to keep tank clean.
> 
> For the Angels, you could add a breeding cone so that you have the ease of moving the spawn if needed. Sometimes they can spawn on surfaces that are not very practical- like the heater.
> 
> For both, all you need is a sponge-filter for biological filtration because you are doing frequent water changes. With this, you are the mechanical filtration.


What size tank would you suggest for a grow out? I’m sure I won’t be successful right off the bat but eventually I am hoping to be able to get a good chunk of fry to survive. I am assuming my LFS stores would prefer they be nickel size and a 20 gallon is far too small for nickel sized angels (Well a large amount). I don’t trust my 40 long to hold water anymore but the stand is conveniently the right size for a 55. I don’t plan on going out and buying a tank right now until I can be successful just getting good spawns but I want to do research so I know what to do without too much failure along the way.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

The size of the tank for grow-outs depends on how much fry you have. 
For the normal size group of fry the 20 gallon would be too small.
The 40 gallon would be perfect, but the 55 gallon will work just fine.


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## FreshwaterCentral (Jul 8, 2018)

I would say for an initial growout you could make 20 gallon work, but you'll definitely want to move them to the 55 gallon, and honestly it might be easier to start there given how much feeding and cleaning you'll have. 

If you need additional sponge filters there's plenty on amazon such as this one: https://www.amazon.com/Aquaneat-Aqu...&qid=1545700426&sr=1-8&keywords=sponge+filter

You'll have to make sure your airpump has an extra hole for it. 

IMO if you're planning to grow out angels until Nickel size to sell to an LFS, you should make the investment in a 55. Do you know how large previous batches have been with your proven female. New pairs tend to have smaller batches so a 20H might work for the first batch or two.


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

For the pair a 20H is OK but a 29 is better. Bare bottom with only a heater (horizontal), a filter, a breeding slate, and maybe some narrow leafed plants in pots, Vals or similar. For babies there are two choices. 
1. Let them raise the babies by themselves.
2. Pull the eggs and raise them yourself.
Angels Plus has breeding slates and Gallon jars. Get the 10 gal. setup and cycled. When they spawn on the slate, put it in a jar and into the 10 gal. to maintain temp. When they hatch siphon them into either a hatching jar or into a 2-1/2 gallon tank. When they start swimming (day 8 or 9) feed them newly hatched baby brine shrimp twice a day and do daily water changes. When they start to crowd the 2-1/2, move them to the 10. When they start to crowd the 10, move them to a 55. Depending on the size of the spawns, you might need 2 55s. They will spawn every 10 - 14 days so when the fry move to a bigger tank there will be the next batch waiting to go in. All tanks bare bottom with sponges in all but the 55s.


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

I was going to suggest a 29g breeding tank and a 55g growout. 

Another thing you can do is make an acrylic barrier for the 55g tank, in which case you might not need the 29g. The parents will have the entire tank for breeding and you can set up a partition to separate them, if neccessary.

When I raised my keyhole cichild fry, the parents did not eat a single one. They did an initial cull of some eggs, but afaict, all of the wigglers (33) made it to healthy jueveniles. The trick is (obviously) to feed BBS 5x/day. But early on I noticed some of the babies eating from the parents pectoral fins; it was clear that the pectoral fins of the parents were chewed on the ends. Also, having a heavily planted tank, the parents would fan mulm from the bottom towards the swarm of babies to help feed them.






The trick to having the parents raise the fry, what finally worked was turning out lights early and spending little time in the room. Let them do their thing, don't keep watching, don't threaten them in any way.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

I can do a 55 gal. I really appreciate all of this advice! I really am intrigued to start breeding these beautiful fish. I have a 40g long a buddy offered to reseal and replace the rim on, but the tank is 30+ years old, might be time to upgrade eh?

The 20g High I set up has a little bit of flourite in it (one of the small bags), some java ferns, a massive wad of java moss from my DT, and a few flat stones scattered about the tank. All of my LFS and big box stores seem to be out of sponge filters. The 10g has a small angel growing out in it with a sponge filter, but for now I put a sponge on the intake of the HOB thats on the 20, along with filter pad zip tied to the intake holes further up the tube. Hopefully that will suffice? I was hoping to transfer today, but the cheapo Hydor heater I bought decided to raise the tank to 86 and keep it there. I found a finnex titanium heater that can actually be placed horizontally, just waiting for the tank to cool down. I stuffed the HOB with old filter pads from my DT sump, so it should be pretty much cycled. 

I am going to let them try a few times to raise them by themselves to see if they can do it. I’m sure they will probably eat them the first few times but the room is quite quiet where they are going. Only disruptions are me feeding my little angel a few times a day, her water change and feeding the SW tank across the way. It doesn’t get any other foot traffic really. 

I did have another question:
Once a pair has "paired off," can you switch males around? I have a marbled male that would make for some beautiful fry with her.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

They’ve finally been moved! They seem very comfortable but I may have to figure something out to block the view between their tank and the 10g. My little one has been going nuts at the glass checking them out and they’ve been doing similar. Not what I was expecting. 

Hopefully I get lucky soon!


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Keeping fingers crossed for you!


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## ReeferRob (Dec 24, 2018)

I used to use roof slate for my angels. I am fortunate to live where they mined the slate for roofs so the area is filthy with the stuff. I would let the parents raise them until they're about dime size, then move them. They need a lot of food for the first 6-8 weeks which means quite a few water changes. Get your biological filtration in order before you start breeding them and be able to start hatching brine shrimp. I used to raise them in 20 long tanks, but I would only put 30-50 in each tank depending on the size of the hatch.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ReeferRob said:


> I used to use roof slate for my angels. I am fortunate to live where they mined the slate for roofs so the area is filthy with the stuff. I would let the parents raise them until they're about dime size, then move them. They need a lot of food for the first 6-8 weeks which means quite a few water changes. Get your biological filtration in order before you start breeding them and be able to start hatching brine shrimp. I used to raise them in 20 long tanks, but I would only put 30-50 in each tank depending on the size of the hatch.


I have a handful of flat spots in there for them atm. There's a piece of PVC from my sump (I use them for easy cycling in QT/HT - they sterilize really easily between uses) that she's been taking an interest too. Will probably be better when I am at work and not in the room a lot. Almost wish I had another place to set the tank, I've been doing 90% once a day, and two 20% on my 10g, and I know it's interrupting them. She's a challenging girl though. Only fish I've ever had that refuses flakes or pellets. Even tried not feeding for 3 days, didn't work. She will literally only eat live baby brine, and frozen stuff - mysis, brine, cyclops. Between her and my little one being grown out, my hatchery has been running non stop. 

My LFS is waiting on new sponge filters to come in, so atm my fingers are tied. I could always put a HOB on the baby's grow out and move her sponge filter to their tank. She's almost quarter sized.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Went to feed them this morning and saw this! After she ate, she went back to making practice runs. I'm hoping by tomorrow morning I have eggs!










His breeding tube is out too but he just ended up starring at me the whole time I was there (this angel is like a puppy.). Room is off limits until tomorrow to ensure she's comfortable.

If/when she lays what should I be doing for W.C? I’ve been doing daily’s on this tank. It does appear to have cycled now - diatoms galore and I’m getting nitrates finally (I stuffed the HOB with filter pads from my sump) but I worry with small tanks.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

I spoke too soon. Had to grab something from the fish room and there are eggs! I ended up standing back and watching. Of all things she picked, it was an unused plastic grout spreader. There’s eggs galore. On the side of the tank too. Fascinating to watch. And my male is following right behind her. Still going too when I left. Super excited though we will see how they do.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Little Soprano said:


> I spoke too soon. Had to grab something from the fish room and there are eggs! I ended up standing back and watching. Of all things she picked, it was an unused plastic grout spreader. There’s eggs galore. On the side of the tank too. Fascinating to watch. And my male is following right behind her. Still going too when I left. Super excited though we will see how they do.


Congrats!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Thank you! I am hoping they don’t eat the eggs. It’s not her first time but I’m pretty certain it’s his!

When’s the best time to start brine shrimp? I usually have them going all the time but want to time it right so they are truly baby brine shrimp.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Ive never done my own brine shrimp, have always just gotten frozen. Hope you have lots of babies


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

Start your Baby Brine Shrimp 24 hours before you want to feed them. Any longer than 36 hours and they start to lose their nutrition. For the fry, start the BBS on day 8 just before they go free swimming. Yes you can switch males, it usually works but occasionally not, you have to try it to find out. Hope they raise for you, a parent raising pair is awesome to watch in action.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Here are the eggs! They must have laid more either late last night or this morning, as there are way more than when they stopped yesterday. 








A little blurry from the diatoms, but when I tried to clean the glass they attacked the algae scrapper so I decided against it...

I am still amazed at what they picked, but what's nice is if they continue to pick this thing, its easy to put in a jar if I ever decide to raise the eggs myself. She is relentlessly fanning them, though she did stop for food. My male tolerates me in the room, still does his happy dance, but if my BF enters the room he goes ballistic. He was flaring and charging at the glass at him. And she was blocking his view of the eggs with her body. I found it humorous:laugh2:

Will probably be a random hodgepodge of colors if they survive. A silver angel with a marbled angel is a weird combination, but I am hoping for the best. 

I'll mark my calendar for day 8 to start the hatchery, thank you!! I usually have it running it continuously as I've been growing out a small fry my LFS gave me, but I want to make sure they are timed right for these guys if they do make it.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

There’s definitely a few that are unfertilized. But I expected as much. Looks to be about ~10 that are white. Everything else looks to be yellow atm. I’ve spent way too much time today watching them. Fascinating watching them take turns fanning the eggs. I fed them tonight and they took turns going and getting food. One would go take a few bites while the other stayed and fanned the eggs and then they would switch. 

My koi always had successful spawns but for obvious reasons - I could never watch it. Plus they have no parenting skills. Never had “tank” fish spawn.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So its been 48 hours, and I am assuming anytime between now and tomorrow I _should_ start seeing wigglers. There's some fungus on the unfertilized eggs, that for some reason, they don't seem to be taking care of, but the rest of the eggs all have little black eyes! I was tempted to remove the eggs with fungus, but didn't want to stress them, should I be removing them?


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Got Wigglers! They must have moved them sometime this morning. Lots of wiggling tails. I am amazed we have gotten this far. She is taking great care picking up those that fall off and putting them back at the top. There must be 200+ on the leaves.











What should I be doing for water changes at this point? I'm worried about sucking any of them up! Brine shrimp net over the siphon? Or will they be okay for a few days? The tank is fully cycled at this point. I honestly didn't think these guys would get to this point. I have my brine shrimp hatchery waiting to start, that's easy, but the rest of this is new to me.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Wow that's awesome. All those tiny babies! Can't wait to see further pictures. I saw a video once guy put a mesh breeder box in the tank (weighed down with something) and ran the siphon thru the box. So any fry that got too close, wouldn't get pulled in- the box mesh is pretty fine. Shrimp net would work too but might be awkward? unless you take it apart and wrap around end of hose, maybe. Or just carefully siphon on the opposite side of tank from where the wrigglers are.


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Unhatched eggs AND wigglers? Never seen that. Maybe tomorrow there will be another 200 wigglers.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> Unhatched eggs AND wigglers? Never seen that. Maybe tomorrow there will be another 200 wigglers.


They seemed to have completely cleaned off where they laid the eggs. All of the unfertilized eggs and ones with fungus are all gone. Now its just a bunch of wigglers on a Java Fern. Hopefully they let them become free swimming - it's the males first time, so we will see! It's been mesmerizing to watch.


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Little Soprano said:


> They seemed to have completely cleaned off where they laid the eggs. All of the unfertilized eggs and ones with fungus are all gone. Now its just a bunch of wigglers on a Java Fern. Hopefully they let them become free swimming - it's the males first time, so we will see! It's been mesmerizing to watch.


My advice, practice hatching BBS now. Will need them in a few days.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

BBS I’m experienced with but timing I am not. I have day 8 marked on my calendar (should be Saturday) to get them going. Gonna pick up another hatchery too so I can stagger. 

Hope they make it!


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

I found that a lightbulb correct height above the hatchery could guarantee a hatch time ~< 24 hours. If you get the temp right, you can have them ready to feed in the morning and start the next batch at the same time. 

Started new batch every morning, and used the other container to feed through day.

Just need two water bottles, airline, (salt, eggs) and lamp.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

That’s interesting with the light bulb positioning. I usually just have it sitting under the T5 hanging above the tanks in the basement. Maybe I’ll have to get a desk lamp and experiment. Usually I get a batch in ~30 hours but if I can shorten it to 24 that would be perfect.


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Little Soprano said:


> That’s interesting with the light bulb positioning. I usually just have it sitting under the T5 hanging above the tanks in the basement. Maybe I’ll have to get a desk lamp and experiment. Usually I get a batch in ~30 hours but if I can shorten it to 24 that would be perfect.


I used a clip on desk lamp with an incandescent "flood" (directional) bulb about 8" above the water. From memory the water was 82* from the lamp.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> I used a clip on desk lamp with an incandescent "flood" (directional) bulb about 8" above the water. From memory the water was 82* from the lamp.


Wow that's pretty good heat. My fish room in my basement is ~75 (just from humidity, equipment and lights), which is probably why it takes so long for them to hatch. 

Now the LFS employee who was getting this female out for me talked about egg yolks. He said to take hard boiled egg yolks and crumble a little in-between your fingers, stated the fry usually love it. Is there any truth to this?


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Little Soprano said:


> Wow that's pretty good heat. My fish room in my basement is ~75 (just from humidity, equipment and lights), which is probably why it takes so long for them to hatch.
> 
> Now the LFS employee who was getting this female out for me talked about egg yolks. He said to take hard boiled egg yolks and crumble a little in-between your fingers, stated the fry usually love it. Is there any truth to this?


Boiling an egg is harder than starting a new batch of BBS every morning. The BBS will feed angels for first six weeks and is the gold standard for fry growth.

I've heard that egg yolk clouds the water.

Just keep an incandecent bulb over a water bottle 24/7 with brine solution and some air flow. In the morning, start a new batch.

To feed, take the bottle, put it over a light source and use a syringe to suck from the bottom. Then inject directly to the fry.

You bought a breeding female, you need to grow bbs. 

One of the things I'm proud of is how even and vigorous my keyhole fry grew. They were all 100% healthy and similar size.

Lots of fry growout I see on YT have fry in various stages of development, which tells me many of them aren't eating and then get out competed. They are animals and deserve the best possible care. My babies have grown larger than their parents, presumably because of the best possible care. Give your angels the best chance in life with BBS feedings.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> Boiling an egg is harder than starting a new batch of BBS every morning. The BBS will feed angels for first six weeks and is the gold standard for fry growth.
> 
> I've heard that egg yolk clouds the water.
> 
> ...


I know, I am planning on growing BBS. Usually it's running constantly as I am growing out an angel fry (well she's more of a juvie at this point, growing like a weed) and the rest of the fish always appreciate it - plus the female refuses to eat flake/pellet foods, just making sure I time this batch just right so when/if these guys become free swimming, I have freshly hatched shrimp ready. 

Just thought it was strange with the egg yolk thing. Never heard of it before!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well I did a water change, but boy was it a challenge. I just did a small 20% water change, and I ended up having to refill the tank with a cup. Took way longer than usual. Didn't want to use the python despite them being used to it - didn't want to freak them out in any way. 

I find it odd that they decided to put the wigglers right underneath the spillway for the HOB. It washes right over them, unless it was intentional. There is another java fern out of the way - in way better shape mind you, that the wigglers could've been moved too. It made it a challenge though to refill the tank. The wigglers' java fern is smack dab center in the middle of the tank. Also had to put my hand under the spillway when I started the filter back up, was worried about them being blown about. 

I am so excited to see these turn into free swimmers, going to be a long week of waiting!


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

If they have moved the wigglers there is a pretty good chance they are going to raise them. Congratulations. For BBS, a 2 liter soda bottle with the bottom cut off works great. Figure a way to mount them. I have mine in an old cracked ten gallon on a piece of 1x6 board with holes cut in to stand them in. A 25 watt incandescent bulb keeps them at the right temp. Use vigorous air. If the air slows down or if they get too warm they will not hatch. Water changes can be skipped for a week or two until the little ones are up and swimming good.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well they must be fairly determined to raise them and they appear to have learned to read plantedtank.net. I work about a mile away from my house so I come from lunch, and when I went to go feed the juvenile I freaked out when I didn't see the eggs right away, only to see them in their full glory on the other java fern! There is half on one leaf and half on another leaf. The one leaf faces right towards the front of the tank which makes it easy to watch them develop. It's a way better spot than the spot from yesterday and earlier today.


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## LinaS (Jul 14, 2015)

They will move them every time they feel something is not right... if you'll have wigglers they will move them too... sometimes few times a day ) 

As for BBS - i use 1l bottle (cut the top), air line, 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of BBS eggs - no light needed, they will hatch anyway in about 24-30 hours. When its time to collect them - place flashlight next to the bottom of the bottle and use turkey buster to collect live BBS, pour them in cup with layer of paper towel, add some fresh water to rinse them (you can skip rinsing) - thats all - you have food for fry )

And yes, you can use hard boiled yolk, but its very messy... you'll need to make WC too often to keep it clean, but it also works (better if its a separate tank for fry, so more easy to do a WC) people using it as a extra emergency help - if no flakes/fry food at all... crushed flakes will work too, but of course, live BBS is the best... you can use Hikari first bite too - its a good food, the Golden pearls - is another great food for fry (just choose the correct size)


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Wow, that picture of the wrigglers on java fern leaf is fantastic. 

I used egg yolk once. It _is _ messy. I would take a tiny crumb of yolk- like a pea size- and squeeze it out in the water thru a twist of handkerchief cloth. Fry did well on that but I did have to siphon out the mess with an airline after every feeding. I just did it for a few days while I got other food- I ordered Gold Pearls from brineshrimpdirect, and then my fry was big enough to eat pulverized flake. When I found it, it was already past the stage of needing infusoria, I think. It was eating microscopic stuff off plant surfaces mostly.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

LinaS said:


> They will move them every time they feel something is not right... if you'll have wigglers they will move them too... sometimes few times a day )
> 
> As for BBS - i use 1l bottle (cut the top), air line, 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of BBS eggs - no light needed, they will hatch anyway in about 24-30 hours. When its time to collect them - place flashlight next to the bottom of the bottle and use turkey buster to collect live BBS, pour them in cup with layer of paper towel, add some fresh water to rinse them (you can skip rinsing) - thats all - you have food for fry )
> 
> And yes, you can use hard boiled yolk, but its very messy... you'll need to make WC too often to keep it clean, but it also works (better if its a separate tank for fry, so more easy to do a WC) people using it as a extra emergency help - if no flakes/fry food at all... crushed flakes will work too, but of course, live BBS is the best... you can use Hikari first bite too - its a good food, the Golden pearls - is another great food for fry (just choose the correct size)


Well I'm pretty pleased they moved them. Almost like they read my mind during the water change debacle about how their first choice after the original spot was really stupid <a href="http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/images/PlantedTank_net_2015/smilies/tango_face_smile_big.png" border="0" alt="" title="Laugh" ></a>. Dead center in the middle, right under the spillway. They must have gotten annoyed when I turned the HOB back on and despite my best efforts to disperse the initial flow with my hands, wigglers were slowly sliding off the leaf. It is pretty cute watching them take turns tending the wigglers. Originally on Monday it was just her tending, but now they take turns. One is always on duty watching the leaf and the area around it, to make sure no one fell off or popped off. 

I have my current hatchery ready to go. Going to start that one Thursday night when I get out of work, then we will be jimmy rigging something together Friday to run staggered with the original one. They laid the eggs late afternoon last Friday, so I could get free swimmers anytime between late Friday night and Saturday morning. They turned into wigglers early Monday, so want to make sure either way the brine shrimp are close behind them. 

I'm going to wait and see how many, if any, make it to the free swimming stage, and depending on what I am looking at numbers wise, will go buy another tank. I have a stand for a 40g long, so I figured I would buy a 55g, but it almost looks like a 75g may be better, but we will see. There are way more wigglers then I was initially expecting and the numbers haven't gone down much so far. I've been making sure to keep the parents well fed and not even thinking about having some yummy snacks, and so far they've just been stellar. My LFS asked me yesterday if I had any luck yet, as they are very interested in locally bred angels, but they have to be nickel sized - many of the local breeders they used to source angels from have gotten out of the hobby, and they avoid using wholesalers for FW fish - they only guarantee locally bred fish. Their sister store is interested too. This female was actually given to them by one of the breeders, so I am guessing they let the parents raise the fry. She's way too good at this. I have lots of seeded media ready to go sitting in my sump either way, along with the seeded sponge filter in the 10g where the juvie resides.

FWIW I actually found frozen BBS too at my LFS. Never seen it before. Don't know whether the fry will eat it, but my little one goes bonkers over it. Usually she gets live BBS, but since I've been stalling on starting a new batch in anticipation for this upcoming batch of fry, she's been missing out. I hope these guys put on size like her. She's easily doubled in size over the last month. Amazing what big daily water changes and small frequent feedings will do for growing fish. She's been great practice for what's coming. Got her when she was smaller then a dime last month, and she's well over nickle sized.


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## KeroRocks (Jan 8, 2019)

This is very exciting! I love the updates.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well, just to ensure my heart sank yesterday, I walk in around 7:30 (I work 2nd shift - but I go home for lunch) and I didn't see the wigglers, just two angels doing the happy dance to say hi. Came around to the front of the tank, and they moved them _again._ I told them to knock it off with this daily mid-day moving of the wigglers ritual, going to give me a heart attack. They moved them back to the other java fern. I did decide to go ahead and remove some of the diatoms from the front of the tank. I have a mini magfloat for my small tanks, and I literally used it for 6 swipes, and these guys went bonkers at it. I mean aggressive aggressive. If I put my phone near the glass they go crazy too. But if it's just my face they are fine. Amazing how they know who is a threat and who is not. 

Eyes showed up on the wrigglers yesterday and they've continued to get bigger seemingly by the minute. Still a lot of them, just a bummer they are so hard to see on this other java fern. I was enjoying the other spot more.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Oh, wow! That is so cool! You are going to have a ton of babies. 

I hope my Altums at least spawn when they get to maturity. I am fascinated by fish behaviors and Angels have some very distinctive behaviors of their own- Im learning. Crazy to me in the 3 decades Ive kept fish, these are the first Angels Ive had. I have just been so uninspired by the ones offered at the LFS. 

Following along and cheering for you


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

I've never raised egg laying fish before, so I find your posts and photos absolutely fascinating. Please keep up with the posts, it's been a great learning experience for me!


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## Mike A. (Jan 6, 2018)

Little Soprano said:


> FWIW I actually found frozen BBS too at my LFS. Never seen it before...


That will be way too big for the fry. You want the much smaller freshly hatched ones. Best to have a couple of containers so you can keep them in rotation with a batch that you're feeding from and another coming along behind it. 

The reusable filters for K-Cup machines work well for straining and rinsing small amounts of BBS. Don't know about this one in particular, just an example:










https://www.amazon.com/Keurig-Reusable-Ground-Compatible-Classic/dp/B01CU9WU10

Use the baster to suck some up. Squirt them into the filter. When you have enough, rinse by squirting fresh water over them and wash them down to the bottom. Then dip the bottom of the filter in a cup of water so that they're suspended and suck them up in a dropper or pipette to feed. Makes it real easy.

Also, this stuff is handy to have around for unexpected fry:

https://www.amazon.com/Ocean-Nutrition-Food-Instant-Brine/dp/B00176GU32

You get a lifetime supply in a single jar but it only lasts for about 6 weeks refrigerated once you open it so not as much as it looks. But you can feed it to other smaller fish too so doesn't necessarily all go to waste.


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## CPD (Feb 7, 2012)

This is awesome! Looking forward to more updates! Good luck!!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Your photos are so cool. My corydoras spawned and a few times I had fry survive in the tank- one made it to adulthood- and I was glued to that tank glass every day looking for it, trying to take pictures. It must be even more fascinating to watch the development when the parents are taking an active role!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Discusluv said:


> Oh, wow! That is so cool! You are going to have a ton of babies.
> 
> I hope my Altums at least spawn when they get to maturity. I am fascinated by fish behaviors and Angels have some very distinctive behaviors of their own- Im learning. Crazy to me in the 3 decades Ive kept fish, these are the first Angels Ive had. I have just been so uninspired by the ones offered at the LFS.
> 
> Following along and cheering for you


They have a lot of personality. Almost like a big cichlid in a small body. The male in this pair is like a dog. In the 120g, if he saw me across the room he'd get as close as he could to me in the tank and do a happy dance, as we call it. He will wave his pectoral fins back and forth very fast, and do a wiggle of sorts. Even in the tank they are in right now, he will do it. What's cuter, to me, is the female is picking up on it too. They get super excited to see me walk in the room. My BF they get very mad at, but me they tolerate. 

They ended up moving them again too :laugh2:. About a half hour before I came home they were on the right java fern (my BF was feeding his SW tank), and when I came home they had moved the wigglers to the left java fern. Cracks me up at this point.

I started my brine shrimp tonight, we should have wigglers by Saturday at the latest! At this point, I am fairly convinced they are raising these fry. The amount of times they've moved them, and the care they've shown, is just amazing to me. 

We are going to get the 40g long out of storage tomorrow and debate whether we trust it or not. It has an inspected in 1985 sticker on the bottom brace:grin2:
It was set up for a long time prior to it being broken down for the 120g tank, but the top rim is cracked in the corner and is loose. Petco had 55g tanks for $65.00, so we may go that route. I don't want to risk our ancient tank breaking with a bunch of fish in it. It was perfect when we moved it to storage, despite the cracked rim, but still, it is an OLD tank, plus a 55g, if I remember right, will fit on the stand. I wish I had something for a 75g. There are a LOT of wrigglers still. I was expecting way less at this point, but the losses at this point seem to be quite minimal. 
@JJ09
I literally watch them any chance I get. I am so thrilled they will be free swimmers when I am home. Between work and class, I don't have much time during the week, but anytime I am not working or doing classwork, I am watching these guys. The amount of care both the male and female are putting into these fry is amazing to me.

I will be curious to see what coloration the little ones will have. The female is marbled and the male is a standard silver - not really an "ideal" pair.

Male:








Female:









I did get a really neat video of her picking up a wiggler that fell off and putting it back on the leaf, but despite being of the "technological" age (24), I have no idea how to upload it to anything.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Okay hopefully this works. Unfortunately I recorded it on my phone but I caught the female grabbing a wiggler that popped off the leaf. 
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUsrnxv5-k&feature=youtu.be


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

"I will be curious to see what coloration the little ones will have. The female is marbled and the male is a standard silver - not really an "ideal" pair."

It depends on the female. If she is a single dose Marble you will get 50% Marbles and 50% Silvers. If she is double dose Marble you will get all Marbles. No telling what other genes might be in the mix.


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## KeroRocks (Jan 8, 2019)

The video is great of the female putting back the baby.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ghyti said:


> "I will be curious to see what coloration the little ones will have. The female is marbled and the male is a standard silver - not really an "ideal" pair."
> 
> It depends on the female. If she is a single dose Marble you will get 50% Marbles and 50% Silvers. If she is double dose Marble you will get all Marbles. No telling what other genes might be in the mix.


Thanks for that! Wasn’t quite sure what to expect. 

So we got the 40g long out of storage, nope not trusting it. Bottom cross brace is cracked too. Going to buy a 55 from Petco this weekend. 

Need to figure out filtration. No sponge filters locally (my LFS usually stocks deep blue products and they are going out of business). I have a handful of HOBs (Marineland 250, AC30, bunch of no names) but I know that’s not ideal. I am going to move the angel I was growing out in the 10g upstairs to the 120g after my water change today, so her sponge filter is available but it’s woefully small. It’s fully seeded/cycled. 

I was thinking of that in one corner and then since I am replacing biomedia in the 120g anyway, taking a bag or two of the old bio balls and tossing an airstone underneath them. Not sure if that will suffice but it would, in theory, give plenty of biological filtration.


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## KeroRocks (Jan 8, 2019)

Petco has Prefilter sponges in their filter area. I put these over my filter intake to prevent fry from getting sucked up. I find they fit on any round filter intake. They don't tend to fit on square ones.

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/fluval-edge-pre-filter-sponge?rrec=true


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

KeroRocks said:


> Petco has Prefilter sponges in their filter area. I put these over my filter intake to prevent fry from getting sucked up. I find they fit on any round filter intake. They don't tend to fit on square ones.
> 
> https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/fluval-edge-pre-filter-sponge?rrec=true


Well I do have a HOB - my old Marineland - on their tank but I have a natural sponge (used them with good success with shrimp in the past) on the bottom and filter pad zip tied - I am very high tech - to the middle intake but it’s far from ideal. That filter is pretty worn out and is stuffed to the brim with old pads from my sump so the flow is weak, but I know it still isn’t the best for angel fry.

EDIT:
What about a mattenfilter? Do these work well for grow out tanks? I might have enough filter pad left over from when I did my sump, but SwissTropicals also got me my poret foam in 2 days if it's not enough. I could just make one end a mattenfilter, and run it with an old powerhead.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

I should, by this evening, have free swimmers. It is magical day 8 but since they laid the eggs in the evening I have some time to wait Took advantage of it to do a small W.C since I’ve been feeding Mom and Dad here quite well - don’t want them to even think about eating the fry as snacks. They were fine with the siphon, but she was attacking the bubbles from me refilling. Cracked me up. I used a pitcher to refill since it was only a 10% W.C and it was way better than the cup. 

The wigglers are starting to wiggle themselves off the leaves now, almost as soon as they put them back on the leaf, another pops off. I’m so excited!

I have a bunch of willow moss from the 120g I plan on tossing in the tank later today or tomorrow. That tank is filled with copepods and other yummy snacks for fry. And I know the moss is filled with it, along with lots of insuforia. Also just got brine shrimp hatchery number 2 going. Gonna pick up a clip on light today to help raise the temperature of the brine shrimp hatcheries so they hatch closer to the 24 hour mark. It usually takes my hatcheries ~36 hours or so.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

A buddy of ours just offered to fix our 40g long for a 6 pack. Saves us the need to get a 55g! We will have the tank back middle of next week 🙂 will be resealed and a new rim. Well “newish” rim. He’s got an old 55 that won’t hold water with a decent rim on it.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well I was under the impression today would be the magical day - I guess not. The wigglers are still as squirmy as ever, so I'm not quite sure what's going on. Everything I read said 8 days from egg laying to free swimming, but alas nothing. Hopefully _tomorrow_.......


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

:grin2:

Excuse the diatoms and crappy picture. The parents were not having it with my phone.
Just fed them their first batch of BBS. Was worried my batch would be too big size wise, but their bellies are orange :laugh2: 

There is easily 150 of them. Its cute too watching them chase after brine shrimp and explore, only to be chased down by the parents and moved back to the school on the right hand side of the tank.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

@ghyti

Is it safe to start doing daily W.C. on this tank? Or should I wait a few days. I don't want to upset the parents too much.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Babies! They are adorable little things...


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

I got some better pictures. They are just too gosh darn cute. I still can't get my phone close to the tank, they are totally fine with me sticking my face against the glass and watching, but my phone is a big nope. They are ferocious little eaters too. Those BBS hit the tank and they go from nice organized school to a swarm of chaos, much to the parents dismay. Cute seeing their little BBS stuffed tummies all orange. Neat watching them zip after brine shrimp.


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

Little Soprano said:


> @*ghyti*
> 
> Is it safe to start doing daily W.C. on this tank? Or should I wait a few days. I don't want to upset the parents too much.


If it was me I would wait a couple days. But it is your call. Small changes at the other end of the tank might not hurt.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Wow, that's awesome. Funny, my fish are the same about the camera. They don't care how close I get to the glass, or if I use a loop to look at something- but if I get out the camera they get spooked.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ghyti said:


> Little Soprano said:
> 
> 
> > @*ghyti*
> ...


Okay thanks. I know good water quality is imperative but wasn’t sure when to start on daily W.C, especially with them being so tiny!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So these little buggers are just cute as can be. Ferocious appetites too. The little lunges they make towards the BBS are adorable. It’s neat watching their bellies turn orange too after they eat. The big eyes are something else. 

It’s funny watching the parents try to eat too. The fry will go towards the parents’ food so the parents will get a mouthful of food and fry. Comical watching them spit it out and 2-3 fry coming out too XD. 

I’m so happy they decided to raise these guys. It’s fascinating watching how much they tend to them.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well with the “baby angel” that isn’t quite baby anymore now upstairs in the 120g I put her nicely cycled sponge filter in with the parents and fry. It freaked them out a little - they did push their fry into the corner, but it makes me feel a lot better having a sponge filter running versus the HOB. The HOB didn’t suck up anything with the filter floss on the intake but the sponge filter ensures it can’t happen. I’ve been worrying about it.

Here's a picture of some of the fry, and their very POed mama...


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Apparently Mom and Dad here are way more tolerant of my shenanigans than I thought. I had read (should stop believing everything I read), that changes in the tank tend to freak them out. These guys don't seem to care as long as it's me. 

Did a nice 25% water change last night, and another one this morning. For some reason they were less freaked out by the blue bucket than the pitcher. They didn't seem to care at all, which is good, since the pitcher made a mess compared to using buckets. They are more accustomed to the python's siphon, but in fear of sucking up fry, I used the old one - just the siphon - from my old python to empty the tank into a bucket. The fry have become very curious about _everything_ that occurs in the tank, and around the tank. Cracks me up to see them following Mom and Dad to the front glass to say "Hi!" when I walk in the room. It's my reminder they are angels, not little aliens. Amazing to see that personality already considering they've only been free swimming since Sunday. 

I also, unless I am seeing things, see that some of the fry are darker on the top than others. I wonder if it's a hint at colors?


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## jayo (Sep 21, 2016)

I'm really loving the pics of the little cuties and hope you take pics every couple days as they grow and share them with us! Such round orange bellies.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I too am eager to see frequent updates and pics. I always think it's amazing to see the moment when they start to look like proper little fish (in this case with the angel shape) instead of tadpole-like creatures.


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## ReeferRob (Dec 24, 2018)

You're making me feel old, the last angelfish I raised was when I was 16, 40 odd years ago. 2 things will kill fry, dirty water and not enough food. Make sure you rinse the baby brine shrimp well to remove the salt.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ReeferRob said:


> You're making me feel old, the last angelfish I raised was when I was 16, 40 odd years ago. 2 things will kill fry, dirty water and not enough food. Make sure you rinse the baby brine shrimp well to remove the salt.


These are my first fish I can ever say I've "bred", but I still have a lot of fish keeping ahead of me! Our koi spawned every spring, successfully, but that didn't exactly require any work, though these parents are making it quite easy with the fry. They've been rockstars. 

There's definitely less than there were on Monday, but not a drastic drop-off in numbers. They are definitely getting enough food, and I've been trying hard with keeping the water as clean as possible (Tank tested this evening at 5ppm nitrate prior to a W.C.). I really should've kept the tank BB, but I've been trying to be as thorough as possible. The female, does unfortunately, only eat frozen food (she will spit out flakes and pellets, picky thing), but I've been making sure to siphon out their uneaten food a few minutes after they eat with a turkey baster.There were a few wigglers though, on Tuesday, that were smaller than the others. They didn't seem to swim nearly as strong as the others, and I saw a few that had bent tails. I am assuming these are the ones that are missing per say. 

This is the current amount of little stinkers. There's a handful inside of that java fern too, they herded them to this new spot sometime this evening. They have been poking around the roots and leaves quite a bit. 









They are growing quite fast, even at only a few days old. Swimming much stronger too. Nearly impossible to get a good picture of them.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> I too am eager to see frequent updates and pics. I always think it's amazing to see the moment when they start to look like proper little fish (in this case with the angel shape) instead of tadpole-like creatures.


With how popular breeding angels is, I am surprised there is no timeline development wise. The stage from eggs to wigglers to free swimming has a timeline, but beyond that, there's not much out there.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I've seen a chart in a book, showing fry development from egg stage to sub-adult, but I can't find the page in any of my own collection so it must have been from the library...


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> I've seen a chart in a book, showing fry development from egg stage to sub-adult, but I can't find the page in any of my own collection so it must have been from the library...


That would be quite interesting to see. I am hoping with daily W.C and frequent feedings they will grow at a good rate. There are a few who are behind the rest but most have put on a considerable amount of size since Monday. I could probably slowly increase the temperature to get them to develop quicker but the parents are comfortable at this temperature and the fry seem to be happy and active so I don’t want to change something and make everyone unhappy.

The baby angel I grew out was pretty good practice for growing out the fry at least. Really showed me how beneficial large daily water changes are to getting good healthy growth out of young fish. I did 90% on her tank daily, and in a month she went from under dime sized (she was truly a baby) to quarter sized.


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## Jcricket (Nov 30, 2018)

Many moons ago when I was actively breeding cichlids, I did a 30-50% daily water change on my tanks. The growth rate is clearly enhanced by this.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well the babies got their first taste of flakes. Wasn’t intentional. My male saw me move the container and started doing his dance, even the female was too. So I threw a handful of it in (it’s all crushed since it’s the container I was using to grow out the “baby” angel). They went nuts and soon little pieces started falling down to the fry. Was cute seeing one grab a piece and then all of a sudden they were at the surface with the parents sneaking little bits. Little guys were fed BBS 10 minutes prior. 

The way they copy and follow their parents moves is honestly adorable. Where the parents go they go. When the parents come to the front to do their happy dance, the fry follow right behind them to join. 

Hopefully I can get some more pictures tomorrow. The tank is like diatom central ATM. But the male does NOT like the algae scrapper and the fry seem to graze on it too. The T5 above it is in for quite a long time to allow me time to do school + work + feed and do W.C on the tank, but the diatoms seem to be of benefit to the fry so not going to worry too much. Just frustrates me it’s so hard to get good pictures. About 3/4 of them have a dark line on the top and 1/4 have a white line. It’s getting more distinct too. Coloration perhaps? 

Cheapy BBS hatchery died too. Long story short it spews water EVERYWHERE. But I finally figured out to decapsalate (spl?) the eggs and the hatch rate is MUCH faster than before. Should be okay for now.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So disaster has struck in the form of "I am an idiot". I have an airline with a weight that I toss in the brine shrimp hatchery, and an old light I aim at the bottom. I then go and feed the rest of the animals in the house. Well I came back and all of the hatchery had been drained on to the floor. <a href="http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/images/smilie/icon_sad.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Sad" ></a>

_Luckily_ they ate some of the frozen BBS I have. I am going to go pick up instant BBS (ocean nutrition's). But this is not the best start to Sunday. You could watch how displeased they were with the frozen ones, but they did eat them. Wish there was a source of live BBS around here.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

The trials of breeding fish. 
I have really enjoyed keeping up with your processes. I would keep doing this and be as detailed as possible ( time-permitting) because you would be surprised at how resources like this are valuable to others as a guide to their own breeding attempts. 

Your doing a great job. I think frequent water changes and small feedings throughout the day is key to raising many cichlid fry, juveniles, and sub-adults. This ensures optimum growth and strong immune systems.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

It’s definitely been a trial. I hope this will be of help to someone in the future. There’s information out there but not a lot of it. They tell you the process from eggs to free swimming, but after that there’s limited information. 

Well like the frozen BBS they eat the instant brine shrimp, and then for the most part spit it out. They also had Hikari First Bites at my LFS so I’ll try those a little later. These fry are getting pretty big pretty fast so they’ve got the mouths for it. They’ve been eating copepods and what not off the algae everywhere and their bellies are quite round so I am assuming they are okay for now. I have a metal halide lamp I use for working outside, pointed right at the brine shrimp hatchery. Hopefully it will heat the water and get the shrimp to hatch within 24 hours. 

I do have some pictures I will upload later too!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well the Hikari First Bites were a failure too. They eat them and then spit them out.... They even sit there for a few seconds and debate whether they will eat it, then they spit it out. They all do seem to have decently round bellies right now, so I am assuming they are eating all the insuforia and what not in the tank. They've been grazing pretty relentlessly all day. I really hope going a day without BBS won't hurt them too much, worried that tomorrow I will have a major loss. I feel awful it happened, but there's not much I can do. Even called around to all of the LFS in the area to see if ANY of them had any live BBS. But alas, no luck. I ended up getting wads of moss and some fine filter pad out of the 120g to give them a good supply of mulm, and the goodies in mulm - copepods. They've definitely been picking at it along with the diatoms on the tank glass. Hopefully the heavy feedings I've been doing up until now, will help them carry through to tomorrow when the BBS hatch. The heater has been one of their favorite places to hunt for goodies. It's cute watching the little things peck at copepods. 

I did try getting some pictures today, because they are starting to really look like fish, not aliens, but they just will not stop moving. :laugh2: 

They are also scattered all over the tank. They have fins starting to form too. Their tails actually look like fin tails, and they have pectoral/dorsal fins starting to grow. The colors are really starting to show too, obviously not the patterns, but some have dark lines and faces, others have cream colored lines and faces. 

Here are my horrible attempts at getting pictures! Also had an airstone in this tank originally, and the line fell into the tank, completing the complete disaster look I was going for in this tank. Anytime I try to get it out, my hand gets attacked relentlessly :laugh2: They've also officially been free swimming for a week!


















You can, hopefully, see some of the colorations in this picture:


















Fingers-crossed we will be good tomorrow. Really would feel awful if I end up losing fry because I lost all of my BBS this morning.


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## Mike A. (Jan 6, 2018)

Little Soprano said:


> Well the Hikari First Bites were a failure too. They eat them and then spit them out.... They even sit there for a few seconds and debate whether they will eat it, then they spit it out.


Don't necessarily give up on it. They tend to get less picky as they get more hungry and they'll usually start to try other things and likely will eat without any trouble soon. Might start mixing in a little of other things in as you feed. It's gets a whole lot easier once you can get them eating easier to manage foods. The BBS thing gets kinda old after a while. The jar of ready-to-go BBS that I pointed you to earlier is good as a transition food and handy to have around for when things like that happen.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

I hope so! I tried the Ocean Nutrition Instant BBS, frozen BBS (same size as the ocean nutrition), and Hikari First Bites. They swarmed it thinking it was all good food but didn’t eat any of it. The parents did, they didn’t.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

You may want to look in Craigslist and see if anyone is selling small live food locally, or there may be a local fish club that you could contact and ask if any of the members have live food for baby fish they'd be willing to sell or give away


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

ReeferRob said:


> You're making me feel old, the last angelfish I raised was when I was 16, 40 odd years ago. 2 things will kill fry, dirty water and not enough food. Make sure you rinse the baby brine shrimp well to remove the salt.


When I raised keyhole fry, I didn't rinse the BBS, just injected them directly to the fry and all of the babies thrived. This was in a 50g growout tank. I figured it was better to feed them many times a day.. if I had to filter the BBS, I wouldn't be able to inject them directly to the fry swarm and they wouldn't get to eat as much.

Maybe angels are more sensitive to salinity.

LittleSoprano, it would be great to see video of them eating. I kept a weekly video growth journal of my keyholes up to week 18. Most of them are not publicly listed, but I can send you the links if necessary. afaict, the angels are similar size, similar in the way the parents spawn and raise them, should follow a similar development path. 

Six weeks of BBS, 5x/day imo is going to be best. As they get larger, just keep increasing the amount you "cook" each day. I had only 31 fry (it was a small spawn, parents culled half of the eggs but raised all the wigglers) and I went through 1.5 of those dark glass tubes of eggs. Raising all 150 fry could be a small investment unless you can buy eggs in large quantity, OR start growing out the BBS.

One of the things I was proud of was the equal growth of all the fry. If you use alternate sources of food, I predict some of the fry will accept it and some won't, outpace and then eventually out compete the smaller fry. Then you will have a situation where they are at different stages of growth which could make it hard to keep them all healthy.

You may need to do a cull depending on the size of the growout tank. I am just guessing, but a 55g growout might only support 60-80 at 1-1.5" size when you will be able to sell them.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well, lo and behold my BF found something they like. And like a lot. He tossed two algae wafers in the tank last night and once they softened up they became fry magnets. I do have live BBS again, thank goodness, but these fry really like those algae wafers. They are constantly grazing on them. Not sure if it’s the algae wafers or the microorganisms they attract, but it’s good to know they can be used as a backup!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> ReeferRob said:
> 
> 
> > You're making me feel old, the last angelfish I raised was when I was 16, 40 odd years ago. 2 things will kill fry, dirty water and not enough food. Make sure you rinse the baby brine shrimp well to remove the salt.
> ...


I am probably at right around 100-125 right now. I did notice there are a few that are smaller than the rest. Not sure why but there is. 

They are turning into pigs though. I am currently doing 1 tsp of eggs in my 2 liter hatcheries. Might be time to increase that soon. The BBS is gone in 2-3 minutes flat when I feed the tank. They’ve been picking around the tank all day too. 

I’ll have to try and get a nice video of them feeding. It’s really neat to watch them! They go bananas over the BBS.


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

About ten minutes before you feed them the BBS, crush a little flake real fine and put that in there. They will start to learn to eat flake. When they all come running for the flake you can wean them off the BBS.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ghyti said:


> About ten minutes before you feed them the BBS, crush a little flake real fine and put that in there. They will start to learn to eat flake. When they all come running for the flake you can wean them off the BBS.


You know I didn’t even think of that option when my culture ended up on the carpet. They do like the bits of flake that get past the parents. 

I tried that trick right before I fed BBS a few minutes ago too and they gobbled it up. 


At this point they are actually starting to look like fish. They have dorsal fins and pectoral fins. Not angel shaped but they are growing at a feverish pace. They seemed to have learned, during the day of no food, that the tank is also filled with yummy goodies. They are now constantly grazing on the diatoms, plants and even poking around at the substrate. Even come morning when I go down to feed them meal #1 they have fairly round little tummies. They used to be in a nice school even during the day but now they are literally everywhere. 🙂 

Will try to get some new pictures tonight after work. They are some really cute little fish.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Congrats on the group and success. I've been out and distracted for some time and suddenly you have a swarm! 
Looks like most others of the group are giving good advise and from there it can be pretty much random how things go. Fish, like humans, are not all the same and what they choose to do will vary. So that leaves me to throw in some advise that you may want to decide how it fits your plan?
I am always glad to see adult fish taking good care of fry but then I also know that it is natural in nature for those fry to grow to some point and then gradually move away from "home". And this is where the decision comes around. Do you want to move some of the fry to make certain that there is not a sudden change in attitude where the adults decide the kids should be gone as they are ready to lay eggs again? You CAN come home for lunch and find all the fry are GONE! 
I tend to hedge my bets! If you have a large bowl, rounded bottom is nice, and use a tube to suck out what you feel is the right number for you to raise but still leave some for the parents to tend, it can work good for both of you. I find I can only raise a somewhat limited number of fry and do it well, so I may only take 20-30 and leave the rest but how the tank and you are set is a big factor. Large tanks with lots of cover and let nature decide or several small grow out tanks? Lots of options but I might call it time to hedge the bet on when they decide the kids should have left! 
Basic thought is to be aware that nature can be a really cruel mother and eating the kids can be part of that as it tends to fatten the female to make her ready for more fry. Nature sometimes works in a much more clear fashion than human thought?


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So I probably took 30+ photos of these guys, even waited till after my W.C. since they tend to school a bit after I fill, and tried during feeding, and these three were literally the best out of them all. They will not stop moving at all. But they are cute, so I'll give them that.

Here's a handful of them, with the female keeping an eye on me...









They are terrible photography subjects. 









This one, I'll admit, came out better then I thought it would. You can see the fin development. 









I will have to try and get a video this weekend. There's a lot of diatoms on the tank glass which makes it more difficult to get good shots of the little guys. I will have to dig out the algae scrapper. The male tolerated the last time for about 30 seconds, which was enough to get most of the diatoms off. If only the female would stop pecking at me when I gravel vac the tank! She is relentless.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

As per request, here's an attempt at getting a video of them eating! [excuse the cell phone video, and diatoms :laugh2:]


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

This is the better video that I thought I uploaded. There’s some attempts at me getting a full tank shot but that didn’t work. Caught some good in focus close ups of fry gobbling down their breakfast!

https://youtu.be/4upCmoJUO2M


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So as of tonight, 20 days after they laid eggs, the fry are starting to grow their ventral fins!! Most of them have two very small, well the start of them, ventral fins. Excited to see where we are by the end of next week.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ghyti said:


> About ten minutes before you feed them the BBS, crush a little flake real fine and put that in there. They will start to learn to eat flake. When they all come running for the flake you can wean them off the BBS.


When should I be planning to move them to their own grow out tank? They will be three weeks old (well from egg laying until now is three weeks) on the 25th/tomorrow. I was thinking on waiting until they look like little angels, basically, but I really honestly have no idea.


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

What size tank do you have for them? If it is a 10 Gal or smaller, move about half the fry now. Leave about half with the parents. That way if you mess up only half are lost and if the parents mess up only half are lost. A siphon hose and a bucket work to move them. Then gently dump them into the new tank. Try to have the temperature in the new tank somewhere close to what they are in and be sure the new tank is cycled.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ghyti said:


> What size tank do you have for them? If it is a 10 Gal or smaller, move about half the fry now. Leave about half with the parents. That way if you mess up only half are lost and if the parents mess up only half are lost. A siphon hose and a bucket work to move them. Then gently dump them into the new tank. Try to have the temperature in the new tank somewhere close to what they are in and be sure the new tank is cycled.


The tank is a 40g long I just got resealed. I have the media for it seeding in my sump for my 120g(been in there for ~2.5 weeks almost 3).


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Sounds like it is all going well but then it is always safer to assume a few things will go wrong. That way I can feel proud if it all works! 
One way to help the odds is to be ready, so if you are not really steady on growing some baby brine, now is a good time to start. My major problem with first hatching shrimp was that I expected to see far more than I did. I was hatching but not able to see it until I got a better idea of what it looked like! Sometimes I can look at the forest and not see the trees? That fuzzy red coloring in the water WAS the new shrimp! 
On moving small fish, the tube siphon is good as it avoids getting the tiny fish mashed. I find a second problem is they sometimes tend to stick to things and a large bowl with a round bottom seems to be easier to swish them out. rather than pouring, I like to just ease the bowl down into the water in the new tank and let them get washed out so that somebody doesn't get stuck in a corner somewhere.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

I was originally doing 1 tsp of eggs in each of my hatcheries, but the appetite on these guys has gone through the roof this week. Ended up increasing to 2 tsp of eggs per hatchery. The original amount of BBS I was feeding at each feeding time was just not cutting it. Even now, with what seems like far too much BBS, they practically inhale all of it in <3 minutes.

They are officially 3 weeks old, and are actually looking more and more like angels. Their ventral fins are really starting to show, and at this point they are starting to get colors on their fins! Not strong yet, but some look they are taking after their mother. She is neat where half of her is predominantly white (white iris on her eye, mostly white body, white ventral) and the other half is black (black iris, black ventral, etc). Some of the fry have one black ventral and one white ventral fin. Some also have a mix of black fins and white fins. I got some good pictures I'll be sharing later of the group. There are two fry, I've noticed, that are drastically behind the rest of the group. Not sure why, but they are easily 3-4 days, development wise, behind the rest. They swim fine and are eating, but not sure what happened there. Parents seem to defend these two even more ferociously than the rest, so maybe they took notice too. 

Going to bring the 40g long inside today to let it get up to room temperature since it's been sitting in the garage since I got it back. Hopefully it will be enough for most of the fry to grow out in. I have a lot of excess bioballs that are ready to be pitched in my sump, I plan on sticking an airstone inside one of the bags, and wrapping it with some extra filter floss to function as a "filter." Won't be pretty, but I am hoping it will suffice. The 120g is pretty much on the verge of overstocked, so a bag or two of the old bioballs in the sump, along with the filter floss behind seeded, should work as a biological filter, especially with daily water changes. Kind of a cheapy way to filter since apparently in West Michigan _no one_ carries sponge filters...


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Are you putting a pinch of baking soda in with the brine water? I have read that higher pH will contribute a faster/better hatch rate. What is the pH?

For 3 weeks that is a colossal amount of BBS, even for 120 fry. My guess is that most are not hatching. When mine were small (31 fry) I was cooking some fraction of 1/4tsp daily. I started out around 1/12th and never got above 1/4tsp by week six when they all transitioned to flake.

Assuming you have 4x as many, I would expect 1/4 - 1/2 tsp to feed them.

There is an excellent YT channel "Mark's Aquatics" where he raises various kinds of fry and goes into exacting detail how to grow out the fry food. Water worms, micro worms, daphia, etc etc.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> Are you putting a pinch of baking soda in with the brine water? I have read that higher pH will contribute a faster/better hatch rate. What is the pH?
> 
> For 3 weeks that is a colossal amount of BBS, even for 120 fry. My guess is that most are not hatching. When mine were small (31 fry) I was cooking some fraction of 1/4tsp daily. I started out around 1/12th and never got above 1/4tsp by week six when they all transitioned to flake.
> 
> ...


It’s probably near a pH of 8. I use my SW tank salt. I get a hatch rate around 90%.


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

Hatching BBS can be a science experiment all on it's own! Two thoughts on that? If happen with what you have, don't change but if you feel you are getting less hatch than expected, try a small change in some part of the mix. We need to keep in mind that all water , eggs and other unseen things may be slightly different. Since we are often doing the same routine almost daily, it really gives a chance to "play" the mix slightly and see how it may improve. 
At times, when having more than one setup hatching at the same time and doing what I thought was the same, the results came out different. Sometimes I think nature has a way of playing with our minds just to confuse us! 
Farming never has been a really reliable effort!


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Wow they are growing so fast. I love following this thread- any more pics? I could see the color on some of the fins in the last vid you posted. Twice I've had one fry happen to survive in my tank- and yeah it's _really_ hard to get decent photos of them. I'm really impressed with the ones you've captured.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

@JJ09 you should see my photos on my phone. It takes like 100 pictures to get one or two that are worthy. 

I did, however; figure out a trick tonight, well two. If I want a FTS shot without my reflection and my phone, I have to sit on the floor. Second, if I hide my phone behind the diatoms on the side glass, minus the camera, I can get good pictures too without the female photobombing every single one. The fry are starting to show that angel personality. They are insanely curious about my phone. When I look up after trying to get pictures, there is a whole mass sitting their looking at it. They also now follow the parents to the front of the tank to greet me when I walk in the room. They really have the cute thing going for them.

And, without further ado, some pictures!

The tank in all its disastrous diatom glory! I only just realized now the food container in the picture, oops. The female cracks me up, she went to the top of the tank to look down and make sure she kept an eye on that darn phone, and probably to try and figure out what the heck I was doing. :laugh2: Cobalt should use this picture in their advertising "Feed Cobalt, and your tank can look like this hot mess!" 









Oh that curiosity. 









I see some stripes!









I thought this one came out pretty neat. The light caught that little fry just perfectly. And of course, the female is still flaring at the glass since that's the last place she saw the camera. See! Diatoms do have a purpose... For hiding cameras from overzealous parents...









This is one of their favorite hang out spots. They like to pick at the filter floss for goodies. This spot, the sponge filter, and the wad of moss rolling around the tank like a tumbleweed are where they concentrate.









And last but not least, the best picture I've gotten of a fry out of the last 200+ I've taken between yesterday and today.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Great pictures! How fast they are growing!


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

One teaspoon of Brine shrimp eggs is way too much. I think you are just wasting them. If they are eating so good you should be transitioning them to flakes. I use a 1/2 teaspoon per batch to feed around 400 fry. I don't think you have enough fry for 1/2 tsp. much less two. But it is up to you, if it is working for you don't change.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ghyti said:


> One teaspoon of Brine shrimp eggs is way too much. I think you are just wasting them. If they are eating so good you should be transitioning them to flakes. I use a 1/2 teaspoon per batch to feed around 400 fry. I don't think you have enough fry for 1/2 tsp. much less two. But it is up to you, if it is working for you don't change.


I just looked. It’s a 1/8tsp scoop XD. I had a moment...


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## PlantedRich (Jul 21, 2010)

I am certainly NOT the photo whiz but there is a really big secret to help get some better pictures! 
Way, way back, I got a computer and it came with a disk for Adobe Photoshop and with that disk, I have been able to move the program as I upgraded computers! 
Wonderful program that makes it much easier ( and possible) to get good pictures. Not that the original picture is that good but with most any program to redo the pic, we you can get lots better. One first step might be to find some way to crop out what you don't want. Combine that with adjusting the brightness and color and you can really turn junk into greatness---if you want and find the time. Cellphones are pretty limited and lacking lots of features but it might be something to check on if you would like to have a few for the scrapbook? 
Hope you don't mind my stealing a bit and doing some playing as this for example?
Photography today is less about the good shop and more about how well it can be made to look. I kind of go with whatever works! Your pictures are not bad, you just failed to cheat enough for the current era. :grin2:


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

The fry are officially 4 weeks old! I am planning on moving them this weekend, but I still am awaiting my sponge filter I ordered - due to the cold USPS cancelled mail Wednesday and Thursday, so until it arrives, I am stuck. Plan on moving some bioballs, as discussed earlier, from my sump to the tank with an airstone stuck in the bag, and this sponge filter. I think with daily W.C. it should handle the bioload just fine. The current tank is still doing very well. I test nitrates daily right before my nightly water change and they are always less than 5ppm. The solution barely changes color, so the tank, in my eyes, is doing very well with the bioload.

The fry are starting to get some angel-like physical characteristics, and they are coloring up quite rapidly. They are also being very persistent about not eating anything but BBS. I may try pushing them a bit this weekend and letting them go a while before their first feeding to see if they will eat flake foods. The female only recently started accepting anything but frozen, so I know where they are getting their stubbornness from!

Anyhoo, here are a handful of awful pictures. (they were the best I could get)
One day, they will let me get good pictures...



















That curiosity!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

With some tough love (i.e. me sleeping in way past when I should've), they actually ate some frozen food. While not exactly what I would like them to eat, they were picking at the parents' favorite food. SFB has a frozen blend called Freshwater Frenzy, that every fish I own goes bananas over. It's a mix of daphnia, cyclops, and bloodworms. A few were even picking at the bloodworms! 

I also am hoping my LFS has another one of these Finnex heaters. I picked one up out of desperation when my last stupid cheap Meijer heater died, and I am adoring the horizontal heater deal. I am a Jager diehard, but for the size heater I need to keep temperatures up in my basement, it'd be way taller than the actual tank. I've learned one thing through all of this: the easier the maintenance, the more likely I am to do it. Having the heater horizontal and a sponge filter means no unplugging anything for water changes, unless of course I were to drain the tank past the heater. It's been really nice being able to leave everything running while I do water changes. It doesn't take any effort to unplug stuff, but I am a champ at forgetting to plug things back in. The filter is pretty obvious, but the heater less so, and I've done it before. It's nice not having to worry about it at all. Hoping to get the 40g long set up in a similar way. Will likely just leave the python clamped on to the tank, and hooked up to the basement sink as well, aside for when I need it for W.C. day on the 120g, that way water changes are still incredibly easy, simple, and fast.

Another thing that has made it really easy to keep up with the fry, is having a container for hatched BBS. I have a 1 gallon round water bottle with the indented handles, that I chopped the top off of. Every morning, I detach the hatchery ready for harvest from the gang valve, and bring it over to my desk (room is half fish tanks half office). I have an airline weighted with a binder clip that I toss into the bottom of the hatchery, and then set a flashlight aimed right at the bottom. I go about the rest of my morning activities for about ten minutes, then start the siphon on the airline into the water bottle, and 5 minutes later I've got a container full of BBS. Hatchery gets rinsed out ready to be started later at night (hatching takes 36 hours in my basement, almost exactly), and now I've got an easy to use container of BBS with no shells in it. I toss an air stone in it to keep things happy throughout the day, and simply pour some of it into my brine shrimp net when I am ready to feed. It's so stupidly easy to use throughout the day that my better half gladly feeds the fry while I am at work. The process only takes a few minutes of actual work everyday, and makes it almost too easy to feed BBS all the time. While flake would be easier, it really hasn't been much work at all to keep up with their BBS appetites. It helps too that I get my brine shrimp at a fairly reasonable price, but if I continue to do this after this batch, I will be buying a big jar. I get the tubes at a good price, but buying in bulk is way cheaper.

The other thing I need to start preparing myself for is deformities and culling. I am hoping this will be minimal as I really haven’t seen anything yet but I know it’s coming. Fin issues will be quite easy for me to see but gill plate deformities I don’t even know where to start. Any advice?


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Your pics continue to enthrall me- I love seeing the angel shape coming out. My fishes love 'Freshwater Frenzy' too- my angels are quick to try and snap all the bloodworms from the mix leaving the tetras with the daphnia and other stuff! 

I've always thought that if I raised fry, the hardest part would be culling.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> Your pics continue to enthrall me- I love seeing the angel shape coming out. My fishes love 'Freshwater Frenzy' too- my angels are quick to try and snap all the bloodworms from the mix leaving the tetras with the daphnia and other stuff!
> 
> I've always thought that if I raised fry, the hardest part would be culling.


I am not looking forward to culling either, but I know its a necessary evil.

Well most of these fry will likely be going to my LFS and their sister store. They _really_ want them since there's been a shortage of locally bred angels over the last year or so. I keep telling myself culling ensures that anyone who purchases my fish will be receiving the healthiest fish possible. All the angels I've purchased from them (2 did come from another LFS - uses a wholesaler, had lots of issues getting them healthy), have been incredibly healthy fish. Hardy, growing well, and have the added benefit of being raised in my water. This female is a testament to their process for obtaining stock, she was in my home for two weeks and spawned. On top of it, she's raising all of them. The male too. I figure if my LFS is going out of their way to ensure that they stock mostly locally bred fish, its my responsibility to ensure they have good stock to sell. I think its really noble of them to support local breeders over getting fish much cheaper from wholesalers, so in my eyes it's important that the fish they sell are of top quality. They might not be the flashiest, but they will be healthy fish. It makes it easier for me to stomach culling. I am hoping I won't have to cull any, as I know it will break my heart, but culling is what made sure all the angels I have that were locally bred are healthy, hardy, and happy!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Today, I got the 40g long set up for the fry. It's not going to win awards as the prettiest tank, but it should work. 

I have a 6" sponge filter that arrived today from Swiss Tropicals, and a hodge podge collection of heaters in the tank. I couldn't find any Finnex heaters, so for now I have 2 100 Watts and 1 200 Watt heater I had lying around. Probably overkill, but for now it should work for getting the tank up to temperature. I ended up filling it up the first time, only to see it was the most un-level tank I've ever seen. While it did get some TLC, it is a 30+ year old tank, no way was I going to chance it. Ended up draining the whole thing, and improvising with shims I had lying around. Two wood ones to level it side to side, and I used heavy duty cardboard folded over to level it front to back on the left hand side. I haven't bothered to cut it off yet, but at least after filling it twice, we are now good to go. Since it was laundry day, and my 120g got it's W.C. directly prior, my poor hot water heater wasn't having it with filling this tank twice. The tank was still slowly coming up to temperature (at 75°F last I checked), so I am hoping to move the fry tomorrow before I head in to work. I also had a little gravel in my 10g tank (one of those mini bags), and I figured since I've been keeping that tank cycled with just an air stone and some ammonia, it wouldn't hurt to toss some in to help with the biological load in the tank. Had a fake plant that I tossed in as well that is great for tangling moss into. Only thing left is to grab a bag of bioballs out of the sump. The fry still are quite small, so along with my daily W.C. the tank should handle them just fine. 

Once the fry are moved, hopefully I will be able to get my hands in the tank to get the Finnex heater out of it. It's a 300W so it should handle the 40g just fine, and then move the 2 100 Watts to the 20g. The female has gotten to be quite ridiculous with her aggression towards me. She goes after my hands _relentlessly_, and originally the nipping was kind of funny, but she's learned how to pack a punch over the last few weeks. She jumps out of the water at my hand too unless I have food in it, then she's all sweet and nice until the foods gone.

I am really starting to make progress with moving the fry from BBS to flakes. I switched to feeding BBS 3 times a day, and flakes 2 times a day. Some still refuse a little bit, but the vast majority are starting to see it as food. The goal is to get the fry to readily accept prepared foods by the end of this week, and make BBS more of a treat. 

My BF is really starting to get into the whole process too. He's excited to see the colors and wants to experiment with mixing different angels in the future. We have a beautiful marble male that he wants to pair with the female, and the juvenile angels in the 120g are starting to mature quite beautifully as well. Ah, the slippery slope has gotten a lot slicker... 

Still debating leaving the parents in the 20g after I move the fry out. I am assuming if I leave them in there, it won't be long before they spawn again. While it would be fun, until I really learn the process of growing out fry, I don't want to be overwhelmed with fry at two different life stages, so at the moment I am leaning heavily towards moving them back to the 120g, but we shall see!


Here is my award winning aquascape:









It's complete with the old, completely oversized lids from the 120g, an ancient fluorescent fixture I found in storage, and lots of charm.:wink2:
I left some room, water volume wise, for when I move the fry to the tank. I almost feel bad siphoning them, so may try to use a small pitcher I have to move them, but we will see. The siphon would be incredibly easy, especially since their tank sits directly above it.

Oh, and for the record, the edges are sitting on two 2x4s running horizontally, so for peace of mind I shoved some pavers underneath each of them just to make sure I don't run into any weight issues. While I'm sure they can hold the tank just fine without the pavers holding them up, I am not chancing it...


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Um, where do you have the coardboard as shims? I'd be worried that it will gradually crush under the weight. Can you go to a home improvement or hardware store and get some composite shims, would be better.

Bump:


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> Um, where do you have the coardboard as shims? I'd be worried that it will gradually crush under the weight. Can you go to a home improvement or hardware store and get some composite shims, would be better.
> 
> Bump:


There’s cardboard in the front left corner. Not too worried since there’s a shim running lengthwise right near it. It’s more for my head to not see the gap then anything. Should be fine.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Sounds all good! 
Please post more pics of the fry. 
They look fantastic!


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

If you have a HOB, you can take some of the old filter floss and wrap it around the inner core of the sponge filter. IME, sponge filters take forever to establish bio.

A better design for an airline filter is an upside down plastic bottl/jar filled with ceramic bio media and a sponge on the inlet. 

Fill the upside dow bottle with media/sponge, drill a hole through the side for the airline, and drill lots of holes in the top and bottom(lid) so air/water can pass through.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> If you have a HOB, you can take some of the old filter floss and wrap it around the inner core of the sponge filter. IME, sponge filters take forever to establish bio.
> 
> A better design for an airline filter is an upside down plastic bottl/jar filled with ceramic bio media and a sponge on the inlet.
> 
> Fill the upside dow bottle with media/sponge, drill a hole through the side for the airline, and drill lots of holes in the top and bottom(lid) so air/water can pass through.


That's a good idea with the water bottle. I've seen some DIY moving bed filters with bottles too. 

I am hoping that between the cruddy cup or two of gravel, a bag (or two) of the old bioballs from my 120g, and some old filter pads tossed in the tank, I can get it to handle these guys. I figure atm they don't have a very high bioload, so hopefully between my water change regimen and the mismatch collection of "biomedia," it will handle them ok. If I move the parents out, I can always utilize the sponge filter in the 20g as well to help seed.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

The fry are in the 40g! That ranks as one of the most not fun activities I’ve ever done. My siphons are too small, so I ended up corralling them with a net into a pitcher. While I was corralling my hands were getting the living poop beat out of them by the female. Towards the end, in order to get the last few out I ended up having to net them but I made sure to be gentle. They are all exploring their new tank with the utmost curiosity. It’s amazing how fast they got used to it. Most swam out of the pitcher/net right away and started exploring. 

There are wayyyy more fry then I thought there was too. I thought we were around 100 but after spending an hour catching all of them - there has to be way more of them then 100. 

I feel bad taking them from the parents but I know at the number of fry I have, the 40g will be able to handle them far better then the 20g high they were in. Fine for the first few weeks, but seeing the sheer number in the 40g makes me happy I moved them when I did. Amazingly enough, I didn’t see any fin deformities either while I was moving them. I hope none show up as they grow more.

Here's an awful picture :laugh2:









On the right is my make shift filter. Two bags of old bioballs from the 120g, with an old filter pad wrapped around (all is zip tied together), with an airstone shoved down inside one of the bags. The two bags of bioballs alone should have no issues with the current bioload in the tank.

I have to go pick up a new CO2 tank tomorrow so will probably pick up another Sunblaster T5, and mount it over the tank to allow for better viewing, plus try and get some algae to grow in this tank. As ugly as algae is, I know it not only is a favorite for the fry to graze on, but it does a great job in aiding in keeping the water quality top notch.


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## AguaScape (Oct 28, 2018)

I have been following along because I have two mated pairs of angels that I am considering breeding. Not possible in the community tank, but I do have options. The maternal and paternal instincts of Angelfish is amazing. The males will do crazy threat displays and dramatic charges, but the females can be downright vicious when nesting and brooding. From what I understand, the parents can go into a depression phase after being separated from their babies. Enjoying your story and trying to learn from your experience.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So the babies are doing spectacular but the parents look awful. The male looks like he either banged himself up or got beaten up. Put a little Paraguard in their tank as a precaution. He looks like he got his side beat up a little or bit. Not horrid but don’t want to put them back in the community tank with them looking so miserable.


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Little Soprano said:


> So the babies are doing spectacular but the parents look awful. The male looks like he either banged himself up or got beaten up. Put a little Paraguard in their tank as a precaution. He looks like he got his side beat up a little or bit. Not horrid but don’t want to put them back in the community tank with them looking so miserable.



Is it depression/ stress caused by losing their kids? I thought you were going to leave some of the kids with the parents.

Can the parents see the babies from their tank? They could have been trying to reach them. Cichlids can see things across the room including fish in other tanks.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> Little Soprano said:
> 
> 
> > So the babies are doing spectacular but the parents look awful. The male looks like he either banged himself up or got beaten up. Put a little Paraguard in their tank as a precaution. He looks like he got his side beat up a little or bit. Not horrid but don’t want to put them back in the community tank with them looking so miserable.
> ...


It was suggested to leave some but I ended up moving all of them. They are starting to get quite big anyways. I am guessing it is depression/stress. The female isn’t too bad, but the male is completely pale, fins clamped, and just starring at the corner of the tank. He is not happy at all. I have been feeding them their favorites (frozen bloodworms) when they show interest in eating but for most of today they have just been staring at the corner of the tank. Figured Paraguard would help as a precaution, I’ll try to get pictures of the male but he just looks terrible. 

The parents can’t see any of the fry - the tank the fry are in is sitting directly below their tank. 

Feel awful for moving all of them but at the size the fry are at I figured it would be better to move them all.


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Little Soprano said:


> It was suggested to leave some but I ended up moving all of them. They are starting to get quite big anyways. I am guessing it is depression/stress. The female isn’t too bad, but the male is completely pale, fins clamped, and just starring at the corner of the tank. He is not happy at all. I have been feeding them their favorites (frozen bloodworms) when they show interest in eating but for most of today they have just been staring at the corner of the tank. Figured Paraguard would help as a precaution, I’ll try to get pictures of the male but he just looks terrible.
> 
> The parents can’t see any of the fry - the tank the fry are in is sitting directly below their tank.
> 
> Feel awful for moving all of them but at the size the fry are at I figured it would be better to move them all.


I would put the parents with the fry in the 40g. Fry raised by parents are healthier and grow faster.

I've also noticed that the fry raised by my Keyhole parents are better adjusted and less aggressive than the original batch I bought from the LFS. I wonder if they learn to socialize when kept with parents.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> Little Soprano said:
> 
> 
> > It was suggested to leave some but I ended up moving all of them. They are starting to get quite big anyways. I am guessing it is depression/stress. The female isn’t too bad, but the male is completely pale, fins clamped, and just starring at the corner of the tank. He is not happy at all. I have been feeding them their favorites (frozen bloodworms) when they show interest in eating but for most of today they have just been staring at the corner of the tank. Figured Paraguard would help as a precaution, I’ll try to get pictures of the male but he just looks terrible.
> ...


I took your suggestion, wish I would’ve recorded it, it was actually adorable. Put the male in first and he went from pale as a ghost to fully colored instantly. The female was even cuter. The second that net went into the tank she bolted out right to her fry. 

Amazing the parental skills and abilities of a fish. The fry swarmed them too. 

Thanks for that idea ChrisX!


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

You might also try some Vitachem to get the parents back to health. Breeding and raisng fry can take a lot out of them and Vitamins go a long way in replenishing any lost nutrients. Of course they would be good for the fry as well.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

@Discusluv I've never heard of Vitachem, I'll have to order some. I am sure they are exhausted, especially with as many fry as they have!

So, tonight was a feeding frenzy, and with the 40g (albeit it's ugly as can be, you will see what I mean, amazing what decades does to a tank) not having any diatoms, I got a lot of crystal clear pictures. My BF surprised me today by not only picking up a CO2 refill, but picking up and mounting a T5 over the tank. 

Without further ado....

Feeding commences! 




































This cracked me up :laugh2: Refuses to eat appropriately sized food, but decides to grab the parents' food. After this little one did it, about 10 others followed suit. Two were lucky enough to grab pieces that they could eat, but the others just kept running around the tank with bloodworms hanging out of their mouths. The parents would follow and pull on the bloodworm till it popped back out, and the fry would just go find another. Made for a good laugh after a long day.









A much happier female...









...And a much happier male, now that they are back with their fry. They can thank @ChrisX









This fry, along with a handful of others have ventral fins similar to mom... One black and one white. Pretty neat to see that trait carried on.


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## AguaScape (Oct 28, 2018)

Little Soprano said:


> I took your suggestion, wish I would’ve recorded it, it was actually adorable. Put the male in first and he went from pale as a ghost to fully colored instantly. The female was even cuter. The second that net went into the tank she bolted out right to her fry.
> 
> Amazing the parental skills and abilities of a fish. The fry swarmed them too.
> 
> Thanks for that idea ChrisX!


This post brought a tear to my eye. Angels are such devoted parents. It makes me happy to know they are reunited with their babies. I do wish you had recorded it. I would have loved to have seen it.


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Are they still on BBS? They look like they will soon need more calories. 

I would crumble flake in a test tube, fill the tube with water, then use it to release the flakes in the water. The babies would "attack" the test tube and got used to hand feeding this way.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> Are they still on BBS? They look like they will soon need more calories.
> 
> I would crumble flake in a test tube, fill the tube with water, then use it to release the flakes in the water. The babies would "attack" the test tube and got used to hand feeding this way.


It’s about 50/50 at this point. The majority are starting to accept flakes and they really like the frozen cyclops/daphnia in the parents’ food. They will also now eat the frozen BBS. I’m hoping by the end of this week I can get all of them readily accepting flakes.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Wow they are so cute. That picture of the fry trying to choke down a bloodworm way too big for it - cracks me up. Wonderful to hear how the parents responded to reuniting with their babies.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> Wow they are so cute. That picture of the fry trying to choke down a bloodworm way too big for it - cracks me up. Wonderful to hear how the parents responded to reuniting with their babies.


It’s amazing to me that fish can be such great parents. Especially when one is a newbie. They’ve been so determined to raise this batch. It’s a very healthy batch too! I have a few that are nearing dime sized already despite being only 5 weeks old. All of the fry are very active, strong swimmers. No belly sliders at all either. I feel blessed that the very first spawn of angels I’ve ever personally had occur has been so successful despite my shortcomings haha. I’ve also been lucky to be one of the very few in my county with power over the last few days. 1 in 3 homes have no power in my area and I’ve been fortunate enough to be one that does have power. My adult fish (Well at least the FW fish) would be okay since that tank is upstairs, 120g, and I have plenty of bait bucket battery air pumps, but the fry would be at risk for sure.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I just showed my seven-year-old all your photos in order, how the baby angels grew. She loved seeing them, she's really begging me to move my other fish out of my 45 so my angels can raise their spawn next time (we just lost a batch of wigglers, I think my loaches ate them). I told her how your male was pale and staring at the wall when the babies were moved out and she said "awww, that's so sad!" but she was happy to see them back together.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

We have quickly made it to 5 weeks. And they are really getting quite angel like in personality. If I put my hand up towards the top of the tank they all come out of the wood work, and I am still amazed at how many are in here. They are quite annoyed since they've been getting some tough love to get them eating flake foods. 

Here are some pictures!




































I dare you.... Stick your hand in the tank.... She jumped out at my finger right after I snapped this :laugh2:









So pretty...


















We are also starting to go down a very dark, very dangerous path. On our way home from our first local aquarium club meeting last night, he said man I think we need to either build another shelf or get a rack. And I asked why? His response? Well, we can start growing out some of them to sell while larger, try to get more pairs, and maybe try breeding BN plecos. :surprise: <-- My facial expression when he said that. He was also interested in the CARES program too. 

It's a terrible terrible thing when you live with an enabler.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

They look great. How much bigger will you grow them out, before you start taking some to your LFS? I can see a lot of the marbles have one white, one black pelvic fin, just like the mom!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> They look great. How much bigger will you grow them out, before you start taking some to your LFS? I can see a lot of the marbles have one white, one black pelvic fin, just like the mom!


They said they want them to be ~1". They are close, but still have a few weeks to go. Probably end of February. My local club is having an auction at the end of March too, I may save some for that as well.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

And another week has passed, and I have a few that I really want to keep for myself, one in particular. 

They are currently eating flake foods with vigor, I can proudly say I have not fed BBS since Tuesday! 

Here are the pictures (there are lots):

I got a few snapped when I got their attention with wiggling fingers. Whether it's the side of the tank, or the top, they all come out and stare at me (well my fingers). They are also super curious, and did I mention cute? 









































































I want this one.
















I think this fish is going to be a real stunner. 

















Though I could argue I want all of them.










I doubt the 120g could handle 2 MORE angels in addition to the 7 I have (the parents of these, plus the 5 in there), but it sure is tempting....


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Of course you have to keep your favorite!
I love the photo of the dad w/young one right next to him, both eyeing the camera. Great shot.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> Of course you have to keep your favorite!
> I love the photo of the dad w/young one right next to him, both eyeing the camera. Great shot.


Thanks! He’s gotten extremely aggressive lately haha. Both are very protective. He actually splashes me when I open the lid or feed. And his bites hurt when I am doing my water changes. The female will constantly nip my hands but she doesn’t hit as hard as he does. Reminds me of a childhood friend’s Oscar! My reminder they are cichlids. It’s really cute seeing the angel personality in all of these fry. They are SO curious about literally everything I do. Anytime I turn around while in the room I see all of them staring at me watching. They also love to play in the currents in the tank. The airstone/cheap man filter and the sponge filter both give off a little bit of a current and they like to dodge in and out of it. (I spend far too much time watching these fry)

I was also looking at pictures of the “baby angel” my LFS gave me in December, and a good chunk of these fish are quickly approaching the size she was when I brought her home. Amazing they grow as quickly as they do. Been pretty diligent with water changes (75% daily) seems to be working.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So it looks that the fry’s time with the parents may quickly be coming to an end. I thought that maybe the parents were fin nipping each other but I was watching the tank before I did my water change and the fry are definitely nipping at the parent’s fins. Both the male and female’s pectoral fins and tails are starting to get a bit ragged. I may end up just moving both of them to the 20g high and treating them to make sure nothing turns into an infection. 

Would Paraguard work as a preventative on the parents? Don’t want any issues to show up. I had read somewhere briefly eventually the fry may start nipping their fins but I wasn’t expecting it this early on. Either that or I need to increase feeding frequency/volume if they are that hungry. I’ve been feeding 4-5 times a day but even large amounts of food disappear in less then a minute.


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## KZB (Jan 3, 2018)

I loved this thread and watching the babies grow up. Thank you @Little Soprano for sharing.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Little Soprano said:


> So it looks that the fry’s time with the parents may quickly be coming to an end. I thought that maybe the parents were fin nipping each other but I was watching the tank before I did my water change and the fry are definitely nipping at the parent’s fins. Both the male and female’s pectoral fins and tails are starting to get a bit ragged....


I didn't know that could happen! I always figured the parents would get tired of the fry's company once they reached juvenile stage, and start nipping them, in attempt to drive them away? Do you think at this point your male would get depressed again, if separated from the fry?


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## ghyti (Dec 31, 2015)

Yes it is best to separate them. The fry will start to nip the parents . The parents will not stop them and could be severely damaged. The young ones are old enough to be on their own. The parents are about ready to start another batch.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

ghyti said:


> Yes it is best to separate them. The fry will start to nip the parents . The parents will not stop them and could be severely damaged. The young ones are old enough to be on their own. The parents are about ready to start another batch.


I’ll move them today. Will just put them back in the 20g they spawned in. Would it hurt to give them a dose or two of Paraguard? I don’t want the nipped fins to lead to any infections. Either that or move them back to the 120g and let them relax for a while. My BF really wants to pair the female with the beautiful marble male I have.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well it’s done! I put my other large male - a very dark marble with the female in the 20g and right after the water change on the 120g moved the silver back upstairs. She’s doing alright (she actually looks a bit rotund - similar to the week before this spawn). The male I put her with is following her around like a puppy dog. A little lip locking here or there, but that’s what happened the last time. 

The silver male is quite sad looking but I have a young, what appears to be a female, silver angel in the 120g I am hoping to eventually pair him with. Would be a good match. He has colored up a little already but I turned the tank lights off early tonight to let him settle in. 

Fry, are of course, doing great.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Feeding video from tonight. Not the greatest quality, but here are the little buggers in all their glory!






Update:
After two hours of what I thought was courtship between a male and a female, my amateur self quickly learned, was between what appears to be two females. The marble was being too much of a bully towards her - way too much. So I put the female’s buddy back with her and put the marble back in the 120g. 

Looking very closely, their breeding tubes were both the same shape (my females is always slightly extended) and their body shape is identical. 

So my not so perfect match will stay. At least they produce very healthy fry! I can work with that.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So I suspect round 2 of fry will be coming pretty soon. At lunch I went to feed the fry and noticed that the male’s breeding tube is extended and the female’s breeding tube is starting to extend too. Crazy to think they were only moved on Sunday..


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## celadon (Nov 9, 2015)

I have no experience with fish that actually raise their offspring, so... I'm pretty clueless and probably sound it. But, do you think there's a difference in the parents' fishy minds between when you took the fry away from them to SOME TERRIBLE UNKNOWN DOOM and when you took the parents out of the tank where they already knew the fry were fine? It's an interesting thought.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

celadon said:


> I have no experience with fish that actually raise their offspring, so... I'm pretty clueless and probably sound it. But, do you think there's a difference in the parents' fishy minds between when you took the fry away from them to SOME TERRIBLE UNKNOWN DOOM and when you took the parents out of the tank where they already knew the fry were fine? It's an interesting thought.


That’s a great question honestly. At the moment they are feverishly cleaning the spot they spawned on last time. And she is very very rotund. Big difference from the last time they were separated from their fry.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well we have eggs again. But for some reason I don’t think they are fertilized. I sat back and she went back to laying, and unlike the last time, the male didn’t follow behind her. Granted there were already a lot of eggs when I went to feed the fry so he could’ve been done already, but I have a feeling he may just not be ready for another spawn yet. Kind of odd since he did a good chunk of the cleaning, but he got beaten up more then her by their last batch of fry. While I hope to see good eggs tomorrow, in a way it would be nice if they’d hold off. I plan on reinforcing the table their tank sits on. I have a 75g I got for a great price that I will be picking up on Saturday. I plan on reinforcing the table (it’s 48x24, so will need to add legs to fully support this tank), and putting it on the top, while leaving the 40g on the bottom. I will be picking up a steel shelving unit that I plan to make a shelf for the 20g (planning on 2 more on the same shelf) and leaving the rest for future expansion. Would be easier if they didn’t have a viable spawn atm. If they did I would feel bad disturbing them so much.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So I had to do an awful (at least in my eyes) thing tonight. First cull of this batch. Not sure how I missed it earlier but this one fairly small (I have three that are behind the rest - Well two now) angel had its RH gill plate completely missing. Instead of risking it getting hurt by my net catching on the exposed gills, I simply scooped it with a pitcher and slowly let it out into the bucket with the water/clove oil in it. It passed very quickly and peacefully, but man!

I know it was for the better, since gill plate deformities that severe are not healthy for the fish and would lead to a lot of health issues down the line, but geez it sucks! They are at 8 weeks as of today - I will post pictures tomorrow - and it sucks to know one of them ended up with such a severe deformity. I’ve been super anal about keeping the tank spotless and the water as clean as a whistle. 

Anyways, didn’t know where else to unload my grief. I keep telling myself that it was the right thing to do, but still... on a positive note out of all the fry the little guy was the only loss.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

That's tough. But I think to have raised them all so far along and only found one deformity so far, is pretty good! Can't wait to see the further pictures.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

You know what, if there's one thing these fry have been consistent about, it's being horrible picture takers. These are literally the best pictures I can get. They are now perpetually hungry, and since switching to flakes, anytime anybody points to their tank, stands near their tank, looks at their tank, puts a hand above the tank, they all crowd themselves into the top 1/2" of the tank. They eat like absolute pigs too. They've eaten almost an entire jar of flake food since being switched over LOL. And none of it ever reaches the bottom of the tank. 

So, without further ado, here are a few awful pictures :laugh2:
Nom Nom time?









This one is mine.









A handful of the marbles. Many of them are starting to get some color in their tails. They all grow much slower then the silvers. 









And out of 50 pictures, only those 3 were OK lol.

Our local aquarium club's meeting is this weekend (Karen Randall!!!), and there is a mini auction at the end. I plan on bringing a bag of 7-8 of the silvers, whom are quite big at this point. Some are almost nickel sized. I also am now up to three stores interested in angels, and the big auction is later this month as well. The parents spawned again on Saturday, but for some reason my male is just not doing his part. All the eggs turned white, going to try going back to heavy bloodworm feeding again. It's interesting, because everytime I do a water change that's cooler, as long as the female is nice and rotund, they spawn the next day without fail. I just wonder if I need to fatten him up some more. She's laying extremely big spawns too, it's a bummer they haven't been any good! People around here seem to really want angels.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Still pretty great pictures, even if it took a lot of duds to get those few. 
I wonder why the marbled fry grow slower than the silvers?


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

You have done such an excellent job! And for the first one around as well. 

That is wonderful that you have interest with the LFS's- dont let them low-ball you because these are nice Angels
Any other fish that they are interested in? You could make this a full-time gig, lol!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Discusluv said:


> You have done such an excellent job! And for the first one around as well. <a href="http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/images/smilie/icon_smile.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Smile" ></a>
> 
> That is wonderful that you have interest with the LFS's- dont let them low-ball you because these are nice Angels
> Any other fish that they are interested in? You could make this a full-time gig, lol!


Thank you! I’m really happy with how they’ve turned out honestly. They’ve done so well so far. Really aggressive eaters and they seem to be very healthy fish. 

The one I just got on board is one of the best in town. Hopefully I can get a decent price for them. He wants them to be quarter size, so they are close. Probably another 2-3 weeks and they will be there with the way they eat. But parents aside (and equipment I suppose) in brine shrimp, salt, electric, water, and flake food it’s probably cost less than $50 to raise them. If I would buy my brine shrimp eggs in bulk it would probably be far less. I think the other two won’t give me too much since they sell juvenile angels at a pretty reasonable price ($6-7 a piece), but we will see. I also have other people interested in them, along with the big auction coming up on the 23rd. Will be curious to see what they prices they fetch. 

I know all of them are interested in regular ole Bristlenose plecos. I guess not many people are breeding regular plecos. Was thinking I could maybe try it in either the 75g I picked up or even in the 40g grow out. With 50% daily water changes I can’t imagine the tank would care too much. 

The other fish we are hoping to have success with are the Apistos. I’ll have to get some pictures once the tank settles down. It’s pretty cloudy from the bacterial bloom (it’s got some filter pads, sponges and bioballs from my 120 - so kind of cycling, saw nitrates this morning). Never kept them before, but we are both really fascinated by their behavior. Would be neat to see them spawn.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Not angel related but breeding related! (My BF is asking me if I’m really doing water changes with water LOL). My female (whom I suspected could be a male) apistogramma cacatouides is turning yellow/black and is very rotund in the belly area!!! And the few small undersized angels I tossed in as dithers for now are huddled above a Madagascar lace leaf! I suspect maybe they may try spawning soon. Really amazing since I bought them last Saturday. I hope my water is soft enough for them. I am just using tap. It has a pH of around 7.4 according to my pen, 0 kH, and very low gH. These are tank bred Apistos, but I have read their eggs need soft water. We shall see! They’ve been getting a mix of frozen mysis, frozen bloodworms, frozen brine, and live black worms. Seems to have made them happy. 

The angels are also starting to prep for another spawn. Love must be in my water! I’ve been really heavily conditioning both of them so that hopefully my male does his part this time around. He’s really grown to be a beautiful big boy.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So success! I am currently sitting way back in the dark in the room watching them spawn and he is methodically passing over each swipe of eggs 2-3 times! I fed them exclusively live black worms all weekend, and heavy at that, did a nice cool water change last night and the reward is a male doing an excellent job! 

For anyone considering at least trying to spawn angels, do it. It’s been so incredibly rewarding and fascinating to watch from start to end. It’s amazing how about 5’ below where their tank sits, most of their fry are nearing quarter size at 9 weeks old! Everything they do with them is so graceful, methodical and dear I say caring. They really put their all into ensuring all of their fry grow well. 

I plan on keeping 6-12 of them, growing them out and hoping to get a pair out of them and also to fill up the 120g again. There’s a chunk of them that are really stunners. Beautiful patterns and mix of black/white coloration.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So I have lost about one fry a day for the last few days. Not sure what is going on quite frankly. The ones who die look healthy on the outside, though they are the smaller ones that are passing away. There is no sign or warning, all will be active and eating at lunch (I live close to where I work so I go home at lunch), and when I get out of work one will be dead. 

I test for nitrates a few times a week and they are almost at 0 for the most part. If I miss a water change the color will start to change but it’s negligable. The tank typically gets a 50% (usually ends up a bit larger) every day, a 75% if I miss. There is also no ammonia or nitrite readings. Tank is sitting at 79-80, the same temperature they’ve been in since they were eggs. I wonder if it’s related to internal deformities or not. Or possibly it’s linked to the tank size. Many are at nickel size and a decent group are nearing quarter size. It’s still about 100+ fish in a 40g tank. I keep this tank spotlessly clean, but maybe they just need more space at this point? Many of the stores want quarter sized and I also have the big club auction next week, so the numbers will be whittled down soon, but I hate losing these guys. 

For now I plan on upping to a morning water change and an evening water change, just to ensure they are in pristine water conditions. Would amount to close to a 100% water change daily. They are not showing any signs of illness or disease, and the parents are totally fine as well - they are currently taking care of a new spawn. Food wise, they are getting everything. Flakes, blackworms, mysis, brine shrimp, etc. Same as always. 

Anyone have any ideas?


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Well, 12 more are going to a new home this weekend. And then the auction is next weekend. Following the auction, the rest will be going to local fish stores who expressed interest. 

A lot of the marbles (and the silvers as well) are growing to be real stunners. They will 10 weeks old tomorrow, and I actually took the time to take a true count of my current stock (mind you I’ve given 20 away): 140 fry! It’s going to be a struggle to just pick 12. I hope to get a pair out or two out of them, but after they gain a little bit more size, they will be going to my 120g tank. I plan on setting up another 20g high tomorrow, with the sponge filter that’s been seeding in my sump for the last month. I will be moving the 12 we want to keep into this tank to keep them separate from those we are selling.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Have you had any more losses since you upped the water changes? how frustrating to loose some to unknown cause.

Would like to see pics of the 12 you select out to keep, once you have them sorted!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

JJ09 said:


> Have you had any more losses since you upped the water changes? how frustrating to loose some to unknown cause.
> 
> Would like to see pics of the 12 you select out to keep, once you have them sorted!


I’ve had one loss but talking to a local breeder whose been helping me with my questions, I guess my losses are very minimal overall. He said to have 3 culls overall and only a handful of losses, is excellent considering how many I had to begin with.

I think next time I will also move them to the 75 at ~7-8 weeks (dime size). At the size they are at, and the number of them, is really pushing the 40g to the limit even with the water changes. 140 fish nearing quarter size is a LOT. My easiest measure of the fish mass is how much food I’ve gone through. Since I’ve switched to flakes, I’ve gone through one full container of flakes and they are working on their second. It’s two handfuls of food to feed them, and that’s gone in less than a minute LOL. 

They really are stunning fish. Even the silvers are. Most have a beautiful hint of red in their dorsal fins. The marbles are all a stunning black/white. A handful are taking after the female as well, where one side is predominantly black with a black ventral fin and the other side is predominantly white. They are all very personable already too. They interact with me constantly when I’m cleaning the tank, and follow me across the room.


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## mrjbacon (May 22, 2017)

Little Soprano said:


> ....My female (whom I suspected could be a male) apistogramma cacatouides is turning yellow/black and is very rotund in the belly area!!! And the few small undersized angels I tossed in as dithers for now are huddled above a Madagascar lace leaf! I suspect maybe they may try spawning soon. Really amazing since I bought them last Saturday. I hope my water is soft enough for them. I am just using tap. It has a pH of around 7.4 according to my pen, 0 kH, and very low gH. These are tank bred Apistos, but I have read their eggs need soft water. We shall see! They’ve been getting a mix of frozen mysis, frozen bloodworms, frozen brine, and live black worms. Seems to have made them happy.....


Any updates on the Apistos?


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

mrjbacon said:


> Little Soprano said:
> 
> 
> > ....My female (whom I suspected could be a male) apistogramma cacatouides is turning yellow/black and is very rotund in the belly area!!! And the few small undersized angels I tossed in as dithers for now are huddled above a Madagascar lace leaf! I suspect maybe they may try spawning soon. Really amazing since I bought them last Saturday. I hope my water is soft enough for them. I am just using tap. It has a pH of around 7.4 according to my pen, 0 kH, and very low gH. These are tank bred Apistos, but I have read their eggs need soft water. We shall see! They’ve been getting a mix of frozen mysis, frozen bloodworms, frozen brine, and live black worms. Seems to have made them happy.....
> ...


They’ve colored up a LOT. And I finally got them eating pellets as well. I’ll try and get some pictures soon. Between working full time, going to school part time, and taking care of all my Fry I’ve been busy!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So after a lot of trial and error, some Metro solved the problem I was having with losing fry. And right in the nick of time. My angels have a nice small batch of free swimmers right now (~30 fish). Pretty happy to see a smaller batch. Even with the current batch split into a 40g and a 75g, it’s been a LOT of work caring for this many angelfish. As I get more experienced in this aspect of the hobby, I’m sure it will only get easier but this small batch is definitely a welcome change. I still plan on utilizing the 75g for them. Will fill it enough for the sponge filter to work, but that’s it. 

The current batch, before I sold most, was at over 140 fish in the 75g plus the 15 I kept to grow out. No matter which way you look at it, that’s a lot of bioload. I was up to a 90% daily at night, and a 40% in the morning. Now the tank is very comfortably holding the 50 that are left. Much easier to do a 50-70% daily versus what I was doing!


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So, the breeding tank has quickly become overrun with hydra. I allowed the hair algae (this tank does get some natural sunlight, almost direct) to grow some on the walls as I noticed it is filled with copepods, which this current batch of fry has been noshing on constantly. Well an effect of the copepod explosion, along with my feeding of BBS has been hydra galore. I do have fenben on the way, but much to my delight, while watching the fry today, they are deliberately looking for and then eating the hydra! I’m still going to deal with it as I think it’s ugly as can be and it still worries me with little fry, but I am quite surprised to see the fry going to town on it. 

Still baffled it showed up in the first place, since the tank is fed lightly and I do daily water changes on it, but it’s relieving to see the fry are nomming it down!


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## Bunsen Honeydew (Feb 21, 2017)

Great thread, it makes me both want to breed my angels and shows me that I don't have time for it and shouldn't.


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

I didn't know the fish would eat hydra! 
Any pictures of the new little ones?


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## babystarz (Sep 25, 2012)

Hey Little Soprano, I have a question for you. My first batch of angel fry is almost 3 weeks old now and I'm wondering if something is off because I lost about 1-2 fry per day from unknown causes. At first I thought it was just the weaker ones not getting enough food but the fry that are left (about 50) are all eating and growing well and look healthy and active, and I'm still finding 1-2 dead every day. Does this sound normal to you? 

I've upped water changes from 75% to 90% every day in a 20 gallon tank, feeding live BBS twice a day at least. Temp is steady at 81 degrees. The tank has plants and shrimp in it (they're doing fine). Two sponge filters are going and they're rated for a larger tank. Water parameters match all my other tanks. I'm just scratching my head here wondering if there's something I could be doing to prevent this or if it should just be expected. I do think I was overly hesitant to cull at first but at this point none of the remaining fish would qualify for culling.

(PS my pair also already spawned again!)


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## [email protected] (Jun 6, 2018)

Awesome angels, my angel couple bred several times, and suddenly they stopped, the fry dies, i guess they got sick and Im not taking care of them properly, i was only able to save 1 fry of the several times they bred, i think the angels have the most personality in the tank, especially the females


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

I have been planning on new pictures, but between all the tanks, part-time school, and full time work, haven't had the chance. Hopefully soon though! 

And regarding keeping the angels alive, I really didn't have any die offs until around the 7-8 week mark. Then it was 1-2 per day. It wasn't until last week, when I dosed Metroplex (metranidazole) that the losses stopped. I did end up having to cull quite a few as well for fin issues and gill issues, but early on I didn't have many issues with the fish. I didn't artifically raise the fry though, the parents ended up doing the fry raising. I just provided food and clean water. You might be dealing with Gill Flukes.. Through my research on my issue, I found a lot of discus folks tend to see a die off at around the 4 week mark, which seems to be attributed to gill flukes.


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## babystarz (Sep 25, 2012)

Thanks so much, I have Metroplex on hand so I started dosing the tank, hopefully they're not already too far gone if it is gill flukes.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

So heartbreak time... angelfish fry would’ve been 4 weeks old Wednesday. Was planning on moving the parents out this upcoming weekend. Well, the parents decided to not only have a massive new spawn, but go after all the fry 😞 I was able to save 5 tonight. Will have to make note that with small spawns, I’ll have to move the parents out (easier to catch them then fry) before the 2 week mark. 

Pretty bummed, but this batch of eggs is the largest yet so who knows.


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