Moving 9 month old juvenile angels

[Willowgirl2021]

Hello lovely folks. I have a 70 gallon community tank with live plants, that's been established for over a year now. I have one breeding pair of angels as well as a rainbow shark, and 5 a group of neons.
I've successfully managed to raise some of the angel fry from the parents back in August. They are getting huge in the grow out tank . I would like to transfer a couple of the juvies over into the community tank with the parents but I'm nervous. The grow out tank has no driftwood nor as many plants as the community tank. I've kept it sparce as it's easier to clean, just a little flame moss.
Is this ok to do and what's the best way? Do the parameters have to match exactly ? My community ph is about 7.5ph as I have two chunks of driftwood in there, as the flame moss really loves growing on it.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks greatly !
Can't post pictures as I don't have the allowed extension ...ugghhh.

 

[Flyfisha]

Hi Willowgirl2021
Welcome to fishlore

Its very difficult to answer your question without asking a ton of questions. Even then I for one am going to be careful when suggesting what someone else does with THEIR fish/ pets.

I will freely write of what I do with my fry ,juveniles ,cherry shrimp and adult fish.
My fish room has only one heater for all the room but even so those tanks at ceiling height are warmer than those close to the floor. I use the same water for all tanks on water change day and change 45% every week at least once a week. Fry tanks get up to 3 water changes each week. So my water is very close between tanks even if I don’t test for months on end. The temperature of the water is not perfect. I freely move fry from tank to tank with no acclimation time/ time in a plastic bag as tank water is added . I move cherry shrimp around without a second thought. I move adults around any time I want without acclimation time . I move adult fish with extreme caution when introducing a male cichlid and female cichlid together. Often one or the other gets an overnight stay in a filtered breeding box. So they can see each other. However they are still dropped into the tank water in the breeding box.
I am very cautious about having more than one species of dwarf cichlid in my little tanks.

I have no experience with angels but have raised a number of other dwarf soft water cichlids .

When dropping fry into a new tank the residents think they are being feed. Because they recognise my hands from above as I open the lid etc. This has lead to fry being eaten. I now know to drop fry on to floating plants. It’s the same when returning cherry shrimp . Drop them on to a hiding spot or they are treating as food even when the are otherwise ignored usually.

Writing of your situation.
Only you can decide if your water is fresh in both tanks/ is the same. 30 minutes in a plastic bag with water added every 7 minutes will be good enough most likely. The main concern is what the adult cichlids will do to seeing new comers in their territory? None of the other species will care .
You will need to add the group of juveniles at a time when you will be around for a few hours in case you need to remove the new comers.
Another option would be to remove the adults and put all the juveniles you intend to keep (6?) in the 75. Often 6 fish are added a pair forms and the odd ones are removed.

Sorry I can’t give you a definite answer on what the immediate reaction will be of the adults. I would suggest they are not going to like it?

 

[SparkyJones]

Hi Willowgirl2021,

I just did this myself, although I didn't put them with the parents as the male and female are still spawning and get quite aggressive.

How many Angelfish do you have to move? You said 9 month old juveniles, At 9 months they are just about reaching maturity.

Now, What I know and did. At 2 months all my deaths stopped in the fry tank and all of the fry looked like mini angelfish... juveniles, That went on for another 6 weeks of growth, at that point I determined they were ready and hearty enough to be moved with the least amount of risk, nobody died anymore.

I used 1 gallon ziplock bags, put in about a quarter of a gallon of their tank water, and 5 of the juveniles. over an hour I added about 4 oz of the tank water they were going into every 10 minutes to acclimate them to the new tank, This was over the course of an hour, every 10 minutes add in another 4 oz of water or so and then release them to the tank at the end of the hour. Then wait at least 15 hours for the biological filter to size up, and then move another 5. and just keep going like this until you've move them.
I did it this way for a few reasons.
1. acclimation to different tank parameters.
2. they were going in with adult tank mates.
3. the tank they were going into was 72g and had 6 residents, I was going to add quite a few fish and wasn't absolutely sure the biological filer could take the bioload all at once.

if you were like me, the juvenile tank is ultra clean, your community tank is running more nitrates. the juvenile tank is sponge filter, the community tank is more flow and filter.
Acclimating them slowly to something they've never experienced is the safe bet for the transition.

If it went wrong anywhere with acclimation or acceptance from the residents of the tank, I'd lose 5 juveniles, not the whole batch of them. slow and steady wins the race.
With your 9 month fish, they will be much bigger, and much stronger, but you won't be able to move more than 1 or 2 at a time in a 1 gallon bag and likely need more like a half gallon of water in there.

I don't recommend them going in with spawning adults, the adults will be hyper aggressive and juveniles can't take the beating other adults could. I would however recommend moving the spawning pair to the tank the juveniles are in, and then moving the juveniles to the community tank to avoid the spawning aggression. Same type of acclimation process, slow and steady over an hour to adjust them to all parameters if they start gasping or acting strange, slow down even further in acclimating them. You might get away with it if they are large enough but the spawning adults are going to beat them out of their territory.

the adults at 4" bodies and all males, the juveniles are getting close to 4 months old now. largest is about quarter size bodies and and the rest about nickel size.
Best I can say is to take your time, move them slow, and in small numbers at a time so if it goes sideways you don't lose all of them. I'm sure other folks move a whole bunch at a time and a totally different method to doing it. No idea if they take losses or not, but I didn't lose a single fish this way.

I also moved the parents after two weeks of the fry freeswimming from the tank, not the fry. I know that's not recommended either because it's better to lose a spawn than it is to lose one or both of a pair, but the parents were fine. Made it a lot easier to clean around the fry with out the parent being aggressive and dragging the babies with them at the vacuum.

after culling heavy, and the natural deaths I still had 100 angel juveniles at the 2 month point from eggs being laid. I'm done breeding them and won't do it again. I've been stripping the eggs every 15 days or so, this was enough work! If I had raised each spawn... they have spawned 6 more times in the 3 months since i decided to raise these, ain't nobody got time for that and I don't got tank for hundreds and hundreds of angels.

 

[Willowgirl2021]

Oh wow I like your method. You have a good point about putting them in with the parents though. They are about the same size almost, but I do fear of them being chased when they are breading. I wasn't planning on saving many fry and have 10. That's enough for me as I don't care to keep going through the whole process again with the brine shrimp and all. It was certainly exciting though as I never had any luck years ago with my breading pair. I'm so happy to have even just 10 babies . Thanks so much.
Oh I checked parameters and the ph and ammonia are spot on and match. Need to check the nitrates though.
Thank you !

 

[SparkyJones]

Oh wow I like your method. You have a good point about putting them in with the parents though. They are about the same size almost, but I do fear of them being chased when they are breading. I wasn't planning on saving many fry and have 10. That's enough for me as I don't care to keep going through the whole process again with the brine shrimp and all. It was certainly exciting though as I never had any luck years ago with my breading pair. I'm so happy to have even just 10 babies . Thanks so much.
Oh I checked parameters and the ph and ammonia are spot on and match. Need to check the nitrates though.
Thank you !

If the tanks match in parameters, and temperature also you could try moving one right away net from one tank and put in the other and see how it goes. I don't do it that way ever but people do it. In theory there shouldn't be any shock involved. It's going from same to same, maybe only a slight adjustment. If you have higher nitrates in the community tank you could let your fry tank build up some until it's closer also that would acclimate them to higher nitrates slowly and then net from one to the other. I'd just do one at first, if that goes well with no problems then do the rest. I just don't like having ally eggs in one basket.
Just be mindful of your biological filter also if it can't handle the bioload temporarily and gets overwhelmed you'll spike ammonia... might be nice to have some prime on hand and dose the tank to bind the ammonia to ammonium if you see it rise from zero until the biological catches up with the new load. You'd want to move them on a day when you have time to monitor it.

 

[Flyfisha]

We all keep fish in a way that we feel comfortable with. I respect anyones right to “ do it their way”

An hour or two in a plastic bag never hurt any fish if that’s the way you want to do it Willowgirl2021.

Today I moved 3 adult male endlers from the fish room to the hotter lounge tank. A few seconds in the net as I walked them from room to room then straight in.
I moved a juvenile male into a rice fish tank with the flick of the wrist in one direction , His better looking brothers went toss into a different tank full of juvenile platies. Likewise some tiny day old platy into another tank. If ever I have a problem doing it this way I will change my approach.

I have double checked over the last few hours none of the resident fish are taking any notice of the newcomers , something we all need to be aware of.

 

[SparkyJones]

We all keep fish in a way that we feel comfortable with. I respect anyones right to “ do it their way”

An hour or two in a plastic bag never hurt any fish if that’s the way you want to do it Willowgirl2021.

Today I moved 3 adult male endlers from the fish room to the hotter lounge tank. A few seconds in the net as I walked them from room to room then straight in.
I moved a juvenile male into a rice fish tank with the flick of the wrist in one direction , His better looking brothers went toss into a different tank full of juvenile platies. Likewise some tiny day old platy into another tank. If ever I have a problem doing it this way I will change my approach.

I have double checked over the last few hours none of the resident fish are taking any notice of the newcomers , something we all need to be aware of.

I can agree with you, if it works for you why change it. I've had some deaths by not acclimating over the years, so I do it as a precaution. I can't imagine losing fish I raised from eggs for months and months, so i'm extra cautious.

I was also extra clean with water changes about the angel babies in the smaller tank, which I'm not so careful about in the larger tank I just moved them to. In the baby tank I have a sponge filter, in the community tank it's a wet/dry filter and just a whole different flow and circulation to it.
Everyone is different and does things differently, the only real wrong way is the one that winds up with dead fish, am I right? LOL
And I suppose down the road if I did raise more I'd likely know the boundaries and limits and be a little more lax or carefree with the transitions.

That said.


Spawn number 7 since I raised the eggs above. I gotta put them in separate tanks or something jeesh!