I have angelfish wigglers!!!

I usually take the slate from the parents as soon as eggs are laid, and move them off to a bare 10 gallon tank with an air stone to create current. Treat them with a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide daily to prevent fungus (works better for me than methylene blue). When they are free swimming and have absorbed their yolk sacs, I offer baby brine shrimp and other tiny live foods.

When I was breeding these at scale, I'd scoop up the free swimmers and move them to a gallon pickle jar that I'd convert into a filter itself, and put that jar into a large growout tank. The babies would stay in the jar but benefit from the volume of the tank that the jar was in. When the babies hit about nickel size I'd remove the top foam from the pickle jar and they'd have the full volume of the growout tank to swim in.

These nursery jars ended up serving double duty as filters for the growout tank.

If I were doing it all over again, I'd do some things differently now. I would not be messing with brine shrimp. I'd probably want to have some less labor-intensive (and likely more nutritious) live foods around. I'd probably cull them down more, because angels make lots of babies. And I'd sell them at a lower price to LFS to try to move more of them, and work with the LFS to try to set a more attractive price point so they could move more of them. I could easily do better pricing than their wholesalers for better fish, while still making some good side money.

 

That is good information about the jars though more details on how you converted them into filters would be interesting. In my case I can't do a lot until after I move. This was more of an experiment to see what the off springs would look like. I have 0 interest in making money though i'm willing to give away young ones if someone wants them. My long term interest in breeding are (a) self population of the tanks and (b) see if i can come up with something more interesting than the ones i have. I esp want to breed rams since they have shorter life span esp if kept very warm. I should be moving in 16 months and at that time i'll have extra room for grow out tanks and such - right now all i can use is a 5 gallon pail sitting in the bathroom. I can't move them into anything larger hence i'm taking them to the lfs. I don't think the pail is a healthy environment else i would keep them longer. The 10 i put in the 29 - if one or two look esp nice i might *try* putting them in the 120 though i suspect the current adults will reject them and the others i will take ot the lfs unless someone local wants them (i'm not into shipping fishes esp right now with everything being a mess). I will probably do one more batch of angels before i move and that would be with the black female - after that i'll work on growing out the apistogramma that are breeding (they are in community tanks and breeding at their own peril but i'll offer them a helping hand).

 

I could try to describe the conversion process with words but I should really make a video.

But if you can, imagine a big jar, like a 1 gallon jar. A thick piece of foam at the bottom and at the top. There is an X or a hole cut into both pieces so that a PVC pipe can pass through both. Bottom end of the pipe has some holes drilled into the side, near the end, such that when the pipe is set into the foam the holes are covered by the foam.

Another slit is cut into the top foam such that the foam is normally closed and impassable to fry, but at feeding time you can stick a pipette through it to inject liquid foods.

Inside of the PVC pipe you drop an airline and air stone so that the PVC pipe acts as a lift tube.

Water gets sucked into the top foam at a very low flow rate, through the jar, into the bottom foam, and up the lift tube back out into the tank.

So imagine like a 90-125 gallon tank with 3 or 4 of these jars holding younger fry, and some older juveniles free-swimming outside the jars until they get to a sellable size. The larger tank would have some stronger filtration on it, but the fry in the jars would be unbothered by that.

 

This technique was in common use in the angelfish community "back in the day". Not sure if it's still preferred now, but it worked really well for me. I don't think the folks who made this video invented the technique as it had sort of evolved within the angelfish community over a longer period of time. But it captures pretty closely what I was using for my own breeding operation.

This should really work well for a lot of slate breeders, I'd think.

 

Just an update. I still have 10 (5 dark and 5 light) in the 29 - still not sure if the light ones will be gold or platinum. When do angels develop their final colouring? The light ones are still mostly translucent with some having a touch of gold in the upper fins:

 

I moved all 10 to the 120; and two things happened - the male was not happy to see them (both females could care less); they stopped schooling. I just want them to grow out a bit more to get final colours before giving them to the lfs. Seem to take forever. 3 of the light ones are now definitely turning gold. Other two not sure yet. They are good kids - at least when by themselves they never bicker like most young angels i've seen - wish i had another 120 for them.

 

Small update since it has been a month. I had to put down one of the 10 babies since it started swimming in a circle and wouldn't stop. It isn't clear to me if this is the same whirling disease that trout get (parasite) or something different. However because of concern of it being a parasite and it being said to always be fatal i took proactive action. The secondary concern is do i need to be concern that this parasite is in my aquarium just waiting for another prey. The one that was inflicted was a bit of a runt - maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the size of the next smallest of the 9 which is only marginally smaller than the largest of the 9. So far these guys have been well behaved with no bickering. It looks like 4 of the light one are 100 gold; the 5th is leaning towards platinum but not sure yet. In another month i'll have to get rid of them - i'll probably get rid of 2 gold and 2 dark one next week (get rid means give to lfs). If they continue to not bicker when they reach maturity i might keep a couple but not sure how the dynamics will play out.
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Anyway updated pictures (not very good - focus is off but have to run - maybe will edit post later with better pictures):




Here are some marginally better pictures. I think to get a good picture i'll have to stand there for 10 or 15 minutes (or long enough for them to stop begging for food). Given their behavior you'd think i was starving them but they have nice round bellies:

 

It has been a couple of months and I have one question based on long term out-come of the 10 i kept:
1 of the blacks turned into a runt and died yesterday. Is it common for some to be runts. I know when i've purchased angels at the store i usually end up with a runt now and then but not sure if it is common.
1 black got the spin disease where it kept twirling and i put it down. Not sure if this is very common but i suspect not.
1 gold i gave to the lfs to balance out gold/black.
7 are still doing quite well and show no signs of issues (4 golds and 1 black). They are just about ot reach adult-hood and i'm waiting to see how the dynamics work. The alpha female has chased them a little but hasn't actually caused any damage (she is brutal towards the beta female (I had 1 male and 2 female before raising these guys). The beta female now hides among these fellows to escape the alpha female.
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Anyway the sole purpose of this post is to ask about your experience with runts and if it is generally expected to get one now and then or if it is genetic in my group.
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background on the beta female - she is a double black and i'd like to eventually breed her - originally she paired with the black male i have and the platinum female paired with a platinum male. Eventually the platinum female decided she preferred the larger black male and beat the out of the platinum male. I put him in a 29 and try to reintroduce him a few times over 5 months but she wouldn't let him back in the 120. Eventually i decided the 29 was too small for an adult angel and had to give him away with sadness - as he was really a very lovely fish with a lot of personality. So at first the m/f/f worked really well but the alpha female (platinum) over time has become more aggressive to the black female esp when she wants to lay eggs so in a sense these off springs gives me hope i can keep her till i move in another year as a densely planted 120 is not large enough for an angel to hide from an angry alpha female.

 

Well my babies are pretty much adults and the light ones did turn into golds - I'm assuming based off size that i have at least 3 male gold and at least 2 female blacks and likely 1 male black and 1 female gold but this is based off of size only - i did see one of the gold mating with the beta female. Normally my three original angles stay on the left but about twice a week they go to the right and in this picture they are the three angels on the far right - the rest are the babies: