I have angelfish wigglers!!!

Three or four died last night - is it normal that i'm going to have a few deaths every day ? ammonia is somewhere above 0 but below .25. Those net arrived so i'll probably put them in the 29 after i do the 29's water change saturday morning. That should help with water quality. Still over-feeding which is probably the biggest problem.
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For the record they had butter luck eating dr. bassler food than hirakai first bite - last night i started a fresh batch of bbs so fed them dry food. I should get a second hatching thing so i can be raising fresh bbs while using 2 day old bbs but i don't think i'll do it this time around.

 

Optimistic!
Freshman "Breeder" here compared to most, I am sure .
Overtime, I thought about getting a 2nd hatchery going, had 2 types of cichilds breeding like crazy. Hatching within days of each other (100+ at times). But.. my hatch rate on the BBS was fairly "Good". Would start a "New" batch after every hatch and it would last until the next batch was ready. Quite, possibly you are feeding too much to your small brood. I have been there, thinking the more the better. Per coralbandit advice, just a few drops of the BBS 2x-3x times per day (schedule permitting) along with a tiny pinch of Golden Pearls.

Good Luck!

 

As soon as eggs become wigglers I remove the MB with water changes .
I am no where near as successful with my Dantum angels as rams but do have a few silver dantums now about 2 weeks old .Maybe 7-10 or so .I just moved them from a large dip and pour to a 2 gallon tank with some ram fry for company .Fingers crossed though as I never know what will happen with angel fry ?

You don't need mblue for angelfry

 

Well i can say this much at this feeding they were really aggressive at hunting down the bbs eating multiple shrimps. Really should try to film this one of these days before they get larger.

This also means they are swimming better because they can actually give chase...

Daily update. Tried to take a video it was a disaster. One more died and i found a long dead second one trapped in the sponge filter.
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The seem to be eating everything i put in there - only a small amount of waste on the bottom. Was going to move them into the ziss breeder box recommended by Dunk2 but decided to wait since the ammonia was running just above 0 but well below .25 (I would guess around .1) and it is easier to feed/clean them in the specimen container. If the ammonia ever rises even close to .25 again i'll move them or in another week.
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Started a new batch of bbs (I've been told i should limit it to two days for the bbs to have decent nutritional value). I'll be happy when i can switch to dry food.

 

Yea the longer BBS live the lower the nutritional value becomes with them .
Ideally you want to feed all you hatch within 6 hours of hatching .It is their egg sac that holds the nutrition so the longer they live the more they use it up and just become a good source of fiber with very little nutritional value at all .

 

Thanks coralbandit
Learned something "New".

 

Yea the longer BBS live the lower the nutritional value becomes with them .
Ideally you want to feed all you hatch within 6 hours of hatching .It is their egg sac that holds the nutrition so the longer they live the more they use it up and just become a good source of fiber with very little nutritional value at all .

Does refrigerating them preserve the nutritional value at all?

 

Does refrigerating them preserve the nutritional value at all?

Oops... I meant to ask that also. I do refrigerate and warm them up in about an oz of tank water then dump in, the swimmers go after them and eat.

 

I imagine refrigerating them slows their metabolism allowing the eggs sac to last longer ,but I just hatch however many feedings a day I need .
The Brine Shrimp Direct eggs hatch in 24 hours or less so they work great when using multiple bottles for hatching . The Brine Shrimp direct eggs are much cheaper also if you buy a pound [even though they charge shipping]. 1lb is $50 plus shipping and I have kept a pound in my fridge for over a year with no loss of 'freshness'. I go through 2-3 pounds a year now so order 2 lbs at a time and save $10 on shipping ?
I use these ; Premium Grade Brine Shrimp Eggs, 16 oz.
If you are going to keep the shrimp for any time you could feed them and then they are better .
Selco is the way to go for feeding ; SELCO, 125 ml.

SELCO (Self-Emulsifying Lipid Concentrate) was developed by Artemia Systems in Belgium and has been the benchmark artemia and rotifer enrichment formula to the aquaculture industry.

SELCO is rich in Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids (HUFA's) and contains particularly high levels of the essential Omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Just 3 - 4 drops per liter or quart of water is sufficient for enriching thousands of artemia nauplii and adults, as well as rotifers.

SELCO is not intended as a feed for rotifers, artemia, or other zooplankton, but rather a short-lived immersion treatment that via ingestion and surface-coating of zooplankton vastly improves the lipid content and nutritional value of the zooplankton. SELCO has been shown to increase both survival and growth in marine fish larvae.

For best results, follow these simple instructions: - Do not enrich nauplii in their hatching water! Prepare a new cone or culture vessel for the enrichment process using fresh seawater. Adjust salinity to 35 - 45 parts per thousand (ppt); temperature, 28 degrees Celsius; and maintain vigorous aeration. - Harvest the newly hatched nauplii. Gently rinse with fresh water (an Artemia Sieve works well for this step) and transfer to a clean culture vessel. Stock at the rate of 5,000 - 10,000 newly hatched brine shrimp per liter in the new culture vessel. Do not feed nauplii at this time - they are absorbing their attached yolk sac. (Remaining nauplii can be fed to other tanks or stored in the refrigerator for later feeding or enrichment.) - After approximately 18 to 24 hours from time of transfer to clean culture vessel, the nauplii will have molted into the Instar II feeding stage. - Shake SELCO bottle well. - Add (.3 grams) 3-4 drops of SELCO per liter directly to the culture vessel. Add no more than 3-4 drops of concentrated SELCO per liter. Insure that the aeration is vigorously mixing the water column. - After approximately 12 hours, the intestinal tract of the nauplii should be fully enriched with SELCO. Harvest enriched nauplii and feed immediately. Unfed enriched nauplii can be stored in the refrigerator for later feedings (see "storage" under the Tech FAQ section). Store SELCO in the refrigerator. Order today and start improving your aquarium's nutritional needs with our complete line of specialty products.

Storing BBS ; Is there a way to store live baby brine shrimp?

 

I've actually been using this:
Hatchery Dish

to hatch my bbs. It works well and they do hatch in about 14-16 hours but it is a bit of a pia to rehatch every other day. I'm presuming you have one of the larger hatchery.
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I might try storing some in the refrig to cover the period during hatching as I never use them all up. No deaths this morning - fed them hiraki fry stuff since the bbs was not quite ready - feeding cycle has been:
5ish am; 8:30ish am; 12:30ish am; 4:20ish pm; 5ish am; ...

I imagine refrigerating them slows their metabolism allowing the eggs sac to last longer ,but I just hatch however many feedings a day I need .
The Brine Shrimp Direct eggs hatch in 24 hours or less so they work great when using multiple bottles for hatching . The Brine Shrimp direct eggs are much cheaper also if you buy a pound [even though they charge shipping]. 1lb is $50 plus shipping and I have kept a pound in my fridge for over a year with no loss of 'freshness'. I go through 2-3 pounds a year now so order 2 lbs at a time and save $10 on shipping ?
I use these ; Premium Grade Brine Shrimp Eggs, 16 oz.
If you are going to keep the shrimp for any time you could feed them and then they are better .
Selco is the way to go for feeding ; SELCO, 125 ml.

SELCO (Self-Emulsifying Lipid Concentrate) was developed by Artemia Systems in Belgium and has been the benchmark artemia and rotifer enrichment formula to the aquaculture industry.

SELCO is rich in Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids (HUFA's) and contains particularly high levels of the essential Omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Just 3 - 4 drops per liter or quart of water is sufficient for enriching thousands of artemia nauplii and adults, as well as rotifers.

SELCO is not intended as a feed for rotifers, artemia, or other zooplankton, but rather a short-lived immersion treatment that via ingestion and surface-coating of zooplankton vastly improves the lipid content and nutritional value of the zooplankton. SELCO has been shown to increase both survival and growth in marine fish larvae.

For best results, follow these simple instructions: - Do not enrich nauplii in their hatching water! Prepare a new cone or culture vessel for the enrichment process using fresh seawater. Adjust salinity to 35 - 45 parts per thousand (ppt); temperature, 28 degrees Celsius; and maintain vigorous aeration. - Harvest the newly hatched nauplii. Gently rinse with fresh water (an Artemia Sieve works well for this step) and transfer to a clean culture vessel. Stock at the rate of 5,000 - 10,000 newly hatched brine shrimp per liter in the new culture vessel. Do not feed nauplii at this time - they are absorbing their attached yolk sac. (Remaining nauplii can be fed to other tanks or stored in the refrigerator for later feeding or enrichment.) - After approximately 18 to 24 hours from time of transfer to clean culture vessel, the nauplii will have molted into the Instar II feeding stage. - Shake SELCO bottle well. - Add (.3 grams) 3-4 drops of SELCO per liter directly to the culture vessel. Add no more than 3-4 drops of concentrated SELCO per liter. Insure that the aeration is vigorously mixing the water column. - After approximately 12 hours, the intestinal tract of the nauplii should be fully enriched with SELCO. Harvest enriched nauplii and feed immediately. Unfed enriched nauplii can be stored in the refrigerator for later feedings (see "storage" under the Tech FAQ section). Store SELCO in the refrigerator. Order today and start improving your aquarium's nutritional needs with our complete line of specialty products.

Storing BBS ; Is there a way to store live baby brine shrimp?

 

I use 2 liter bottles with no holes drilled in them .. EASY PEASY and super cheap !
I use a rigid airline to get O2 to bottom of bottle then just pull it out and let the shrimp settle to bottom.
The I use a separate rigid airling with tubing to syphon the shrimp out of the bottom in sieve.
Since you should wipe down hatcheries everytime not having to disconnect tubing [ or re adjust air flow ] every time is a huge time saver and makes the process very easy .I am using the same 3 bottles for last 3 years !

 

So small update. When i measure ammonia today it had spiked back up to .25 and so i decided to put them into the ziss breeder which should provide better water quality.

This raised a few issues. First as suggested by Dunk2 i i covered the inflow holes with filter floss. Second the netting on the bottom is coarse enough for bbs to fit through so the frys have to eat the bbs before it reaches the bottom (not sure how well that will work out long term but it does mean less pollution will build up on the bottom). I kind of wished i had gotten a smaller one they don't make.

Oh one other thing - for whatever it means i saw several my frys pooping. I guess that is a good sign ?

Well one nice thing about having the bbs slip below the breeder box; the 1/4 inch long apistogramma i ahve in the tank go wild.

 

There you go two feedings at the same time.

 

I've only had one death the last 2 or 3 days but i noticed something weird today. The frys which are around 9 days old would eat a *lot* of bbs. I watched one guy eat over 12. The odd thing (or maybe not odd) is he would eat so much after a while he would spit a few out (vomit?) and then turn around and eat more. More than one fry did this. I was beginning to wonder if they had outgrown bbs - seems kind of early. Or maybe there is something else going on. Anyway they seem to be growing fast.

 

Well the parents laid more eggs. this time a *lot*. Seems kind of soon but i don't think i'll 'steal' these though i suspect the frys i have are still small enough that i could just toss them into the same container (i mean these aren't even 14 days old yet). I need to put a piece of tape on the female so she can't lay more eggs...

 

The joys of "Breeding" fish. I have tank fulls of EBA and they just had another spawn, and another spawn. Need to sell all these next month before I remove the other tank inhabitants, right now just letting "Nature" have it's way.

 

Do acara come in dark blue ?

The joys of "Breeding" fish. I have tank fulls of EBA and they just had another spawn, and another spawn. Need to sell all these next month before I remove the other tank inhabitants, right now just letting "Nature" have it's way.

 

There have been no further deaths. I just put some bbs in the oven. Tommorrow night will be their two week anniversary.

Question: Is there any reason to continue with BBS or is it safe to switch 100% powder fry food ? Between BBS batches i've been feeding the powder stuff and they have been eating it - some off the top while it floats and others after it begins to sink.

 

Well despite a couple of water changes that turned the eggs into a pile of fungus the parents still managed to pull out at least 2 dozen wrigglers. I guess I'll see what they do with them once they become free swimming in the tank.
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Is there any reason to keep feeding the 2 weeks old frys bbs if they are willing to eat fry powder stuff ?

 

I can speak for Rams and EBA as long as they are eating the powder, should be "Good" to go. Others, may do it differently. But I normally, stop the BBS after 3 weeks. During the second week I start adding tiny pinches of the powder with the BBS. Slowly, adding a touch more everyday of the powder amount. By the end of the 3rd week, it's powder only. Then after a couple of weeks start mixing in small granules, similar to Bug bites.
Works for me.

Good Luck!

 

Are rams any tricker than angles or now that i can handle the angels should rams be more of the same? Also can ram eat bbs or do they require micro-worms ?

 

Well the parents laid more eggs. this time a *lot*. Seems kind of soon but i don't think i'll 'steal' these though i suspect the frys i have are still small enough that i could just toss them into the same container (i mean these aren't even 14 days old yet). I need to put a piece of tape on the female so she can't lay more eggs...

Well I had a pair of angels that spawned every 12 days like clockwork. The parents would start to shew away the the previous spawn before spawning again, because they would pick at the babies and kill them if they get the chance. Even when I had the new babies in a breeder net, the older spawn got to them.

Probably won't always go the same way, but like you say, they grow quickly and there's quite a size difference between 14 day olds and newly hatched fry.

 

This time i'm leaving the babies in the tank to see if the parents will care for them. What i didn't say is between these two spawns the other female also spawned (it is m/f/f/ trio). However that female has trouble getting her eggs to last overnight. The last 3 spawning this female has gotten her eggs to the wriggler stage - so i'll report back if they are able to handle them free swimming. Sadly it is the other female i want to breed - so maybe i'll have to steal the eggs and try hatching them myself.

Well I had a pair of angels that spawned every 12 days like clockwork. The parents would start to shew away the the previous spawn before spawning again. They would pick at the babies and kill them if they get the chance. Even with the new babies in the breeder net.

Probably won't always go the same way, but you said it yourself, they grow quickly and there's quite a size difference between 14 day olds and newly hatched fry.

 

i also have a pair that will breed about every 14 days, now I just leave the eggs/fry in the tank and just let nature take it's course until I need more fry. It does not take long to get covered up in fry when to try to keep them.

 

Well one of them died after 6ish days. Not sure if i did something wrong.

From what bizaliz3 said i won't get any platinum as that is a recessive genes - they will likely be gold and blacks




Anyway short video:

(title sez 3 weeks old but only 2 weeks free swimming)

 

I guess they are now 3 weeks old or maybe 4 if you include wriggler stage. None have died since the last one mentioned above. I guess i have between 35 and 45 - probably closer to 38.

They are still in the cage hanging in the 29. Hopefully i can leave them in there for another week or two then move to 5 gallon pail.

Here are two pictures (really one picture with two croppings):

 

Wow Jake they look good! Congrats on the in tank success I have to get back into breeding fish!

 

Mostly practice towards rams. I don't really have the space to deal with grow-out of frys until I move and it turns out that will be another 14 or 16 months. For these i'll grow them out another month or so and put the 4 most interesting in the 120 till they get 2 or 3 inches to see their full colour; the others i'll either give to the lfs or if anyone local wants them (the lfs breed their own fishes so they know how to finish growing them out). I can keep them as long as they fit in a 5 gallon pail but after that they will have to leave.

If the apistogramma breed that'll be another story. I can't keep any more fishes but those are pretty nice and I'll have to put effort into finding a nice home for them.

Wow Jake they look good! Congrats on the in tank success I have to get back into breeding fish!

 

Not much to say - they are a week older and growing fast. Still in their cage; in a few days i'll move them to a 5 gallon pail - well i'll pick the 4 largest ones and put them in the 29 - i think they are large enough to not be eaten by the apsitogramma - i want to them long enough to see how they look. The others i'll grow a little larger and then give to the lfs.
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One big concern i have is some (10%? 15%? are a lot smaller than the others - not sure if this is normal - if i'm under feeding or if they have some sort of runt gene. Two of the female's siblings were runt which is why i suspect there is a runt gene on her side.

Is there such a thing as a runt gene ?

 

No idea about the runt gene, i'm guessing it could be a genetic thing (as well as/or environmental). But I noticed some of my fry were a lot smaller than others. All in all, these don't seem to do as well longterm. I mean mostly the smaller ones catch up in growth unless they are just gentically weak and die off. But if I'm gonna lose a few, it's usually the small ones.

 

I put 4 larger ones into the 29 with the apsitogramma and sterbai and shall see. I think they are actually larger enough to not be treated as food thought he male n. apisto took a long hard look at one. They quickly found each other and seem to be ok. The other i'll move to 5 gallon pail later in the week.

 

Drat forgot the customary picture - here you can see 3 of the 4 (2 ?silver? and 1 ?gold?) i let out. I'm thinking i should let a couple of more out so they feel more comfortable:

 

Well i put the 30 or so in the pail and i added another 5 to the 29 (after all these guys will be easy to catch later):

 

Brief update - still no additional deaths. A picture of some of the ones i have in the 29. I'm a bit concern about the ones in the orange pail. I think that putting them in a non-clear container was probably a mistake. They are very skittish unlike the ones in the 29. I'm also er happy that the apistogramma didn't bully the ones in the 29 so that was a bonus:

 

Btw I think the black lace and gold will be really nice. Nothing wrong with common strains. They are often stronger genetically than more rare strains.

 

Been a couple of weeks so thought i would post updated pictures. Not much else is new - still concern about the behavior of the ones in the pail vs tank. I.e, not being able to see me approach through the sides seems to make the ones in the pail a *lot* more skittish. I will be taking those to the pet shop later this week. No deaths to report. they are growing pretty fast now - i put one more light one in the 29 to make it 5 + 5 in case some of the light ones become blushers (we don't think they are suppose to be but they have the red

). So far i can't tell if they will be gold or platinum. Also some of the dark ones have an interesting light ray on the first dorals ray others are black so some slight difference:

 

They look platinum!
Who are the parents? Do you have a pic?

 

The first two are the dad the third is the mother; the 2nd picture of the dad is actually an older one when i had him in the 29 - the top one is pretty recent as the one of the mother. This set of angels is actually M/F/F set - the other female is not related to the dad and is jet black - the dad is a random i got from the lfs (they had a single blackish one but no clue where it came from since they rarely have blacks). The other female i have (jet black) has no visible stripes under strong lights like the dad. Just mentioning the other female since one of these days i'll try to raise her eggs (she has not been able to get them to wriggle stage like the platinum so i'll have to do more work - these are pretty young angles - all three are less than a full year old; the original male platinum i had which had paired with the female platinum before she jumped ship i had to give to the lfs since she wouldn't let him back in the tank and he was too large to be comfortable in the 29).

They look platinum!
Who are the parents? Do you have a pic?

 

Ahhhh yeah, he must be pinoy (or have at least one blue (pb) gene) but I think he looks pinoy. Beautiful fish!
But that means the darker ones are blue too...right?
Oh and zebra

 

Don't see blue on them but they are young.