need help with breeding angel fish first time

need help to bringing up angel fry lost last lot at ten days old put in separate tank no rocks just old type filter feed liquid fry food crushed up pellets very fine and crushed flakes,unable to deal with wasted foods which seemed to build up on bottom of tank,I then tryed to do h2o changes,which was where I lost my baby fry I was going to put the fry into a cleaned tank when I found 2 dead fry on the bottom of the tank.I failed am not sure of feeding and waistsof(food) and h2o changes thay were stuck in the air filter also .Please can someone help me.

 

Its best to have them in a bare bottom tank so it's easier to clean. A sponge filter will grow infusoria and the fry won't be sucked up into the intake. They are able to eat newly hatched Baby Brine Shrimp as soon as they go free swimming. BBS 3x a day until their at least 4 weeks old will yield beautiful babies for you. Micro worms are also a good first food.The liquify tends to foul the tank. I have a little brush that fits on my siphon hose. Its a computer keyboard vacuum brush. It makes cleaning the tank without vacuuming up your babies a lot easier. 50 % water changes after each feeding will go a long way toward them surviving. Also if you siphon your tank water into a white bucket you can see the fry better if you vac themup . Just some thoughts.
Carol

 

Hello butterfly,you seem to know what you are doing so I was hoping I could ask you more questions.Which is the best way to breed bbs 4 fry am unable to buy any petshops can't seem to get them,am using live black worm the fish love them.One of my angles is huge a black lace I think he's awesome,the tank size is 175litres.I have a breeding pair of angles female being smaller with 2black stripes,I wasent prepaired 4 them to breed have only had them 4,5wks.I need more tanks,I feed bloodworms,trop flakes and pellets mossies live ones.Thanks 4 your reply muchly appreated.Its hard to know what to do as 2 get the fry to 10days 4 my first time,I must have been doing something right then when thay died I was devasted the next lot of eggs were eaten bout 4days ago.

 

Sorry for the slow reply have been working a lot of hours :-\
Here is info on hatching BBS and micro worms.
https://www.fishlore.com/Articles/FishFoodForDummies.htm
Carol

 

Hello to u butterfly,i,m extremly grateful 4 all the info which I am now able to refure 2 when needed.my 2 angles have just layed and fertilised there 3rd batch of eggs,I spoke with a person who breeds angles and he sujested I remove the eggs from the parents after 1hour of them laying them into a new tank which I have just set up with a heater and airfilter and air stone then I'm 2 leave them till thay grow and try 2 grow brian shrimp now 2 feed 2 them once thay reach the free swimming stadge.Then I should start to feed them with the seamonkeys hopefully this will solve the over feeding prob and keep the h2o clean this time.I will continue 2 keep u posted as I'm still struggling along on a daily basis I hope I don't lose these ones.

 

Good Luck!!! It's really fascinating watching them go through all the different stages.
Carol

 

Dear Carol,I have seperated the eggs fm parents into different tank afew are white so my angle pair are a touch inexperenced at the job at hand I'm hoping to see some eyes soon.I think this guy has put me on to the right track as I'm the inexperenced one.The angles will no dout be at it again soon enough so one of us has to get it right sooner or later.The angles wernt very happy about their eggs being taken off them.Thay aren't as aggressive towards the other fish in my tank I have 2corals which aren't compatable with angles in my tank anyways,4peppered catfish and 2mollies which are also breeding.I am going to pick up another tank which I'm hoping to leave for the angles as I feel thay are better off on there own.Trouble is every other person in our house wanted to add their fish to my tank.Is it ok to just have angles together in say a 220.litre tank and how many could I have with out over crowding or perhaps id be best to section tank off with afew different pairs.The angles also seem to want to be feed heaps of food.Is this normal.Regards ill sign off for now gotta take my 16yr old son to the airport to catch a plain to nz to visit his dad.Look forward to hearing back fm you again I hope.

 

No angels are never happy about having their eggs taken. If figured correctly your tank is about 60 gallons. You could put two pair in a tank that size with lots and lots of tall plants. The aggression only shows up at spawning time. If you had a smaller tank, say 20 gal.(about 76 liters) just to put them in to spawn and stay with the eggs until they(the fry) are free swimming then put them(mom and dad) back into the bigger tank. Then the fry would have the smaller tank to themselves to grow out. The fry are almost sure to be eaten in a tank with other fish.
As for eating. Angels are beggers They will eat anytime you feed them. But that's not good for them, so set your feeding times and except for the occasional treat stick with them.
Just yell if you need anything else. Glad to help.
Carol

 

Hey there its tootie again I'm in trouble again.I brought a kit(brine shrimp hatcher kit),its leeking,half the luck as I raced in2 the pet shop as the new batch of fry are at day 4,5-2morrow which means free swimming stage with no food 4 them to eat anyways we got the shrimp to grow except our heatergot stuck some how on high,temp was at 35degrees when we realised so were not sure if we fryed this batch which will b ready at 8.30 tonight.seems like every which ways against us at the moment.I'm determemed 2 get this lot right there's about 70 or 80 angle(fry)wriggling on top of a leaf of a lillie which is grafted on2 apiece of driftwood.I have liquid fry food which I over fed last time and killed the last lot of fry so I'm not intending to do that again,there4 the shrimp will be ready 4 their first feed I hope it sure is a close call freeswimming fry,or brian shrimp being ready in time to feed the hungry little buggers.Welcome to my world.What should I do now do I re grow the brian shrimp will thay b dead or ok does any one know the answers 2 these urgent questions please help?Tootie

 

yep, give the brine shrimp another go. the angels will be ok for 24hrs after free swimming.
I usually draw my brine shrimp up in a turkey baster and strain through a coffee filter and rinse gently with dechlorinated water then rinse the coffee filter in the fry tank. After they eat their little tummys will be bright orange. It's so cute to see! Good luck!! Let us know how it goes.
Carol

 

At the moment the fry are still stuck in cobwebs muck will thay get themselves out of the white stuff or will thay die in it.Some are sitting at the bottom of the tank and the rest are cliff hangers or rather leaf hangers.This is day 5 what do I expect to happen next.When should I feed them its all very stressful the not knowing what 2 do.The parents are in the next tank and the male whom is much small is madley chase-ing the large female round the tank he seems to be knipping her why is he doing that to her and what should I do about it.I don't like them behaving badley and all I can do is separate them should I separate them or not Carol and when will you be likley to be on line so as I can ask you these questions instead of baggering you.I'm in ozzie where are you?Many thank from tootie.

 

they will probably be free swimming in the next couple of days. Get those shrimp ready I'm in the southern USA. And am on different times of the daydue to my work schedule. Sorry. If you want you can always PM me if I'm not on teh site. Your not baggering me!1 I love answering your questions ;D
Carol

 

I lost all the fry at day 10 the same as last time it must be the temp or the niterite levels,I know the over feeding is a prob as I'm unable to deal with the food sitting at the bottom of the tank I manged 2 syphin a lot of it out of the tank and scooped up the fry which were sypened out in a cup and gently put them back in adding 2 litres of h2o from the parents tank.I need an electronic ph tester and I will pick up a baby fry miniture tank or house which sits inside the parents tank hopefully this will solve the overfeeding prob as my large angle(female) is the biggest guts 4 food ive ever scene she gulps down near 2 large block of frozen blood worm in under 2mins flat the male angle keeps nobbling at the blocks which makes it differcult 4 any other fish to get a fare share of the food so ive another tank 4 them 2b on there lonesome together its just financing the heater and pumps to go into the tank it is about a 200 litre tank.Also how do I know if my baby catfish peppered catfish r getting the correct food as all thay seem 2do is suck everything thay can find 2suck on 2.Do thay need special food 2if so which sort?I just wish I could go 2c an experts tank set up as I learn quickly from watching what 2do all this mental stuff trying 2 figure out what I did wrong when I don't even really know 4sure is so stressful 2me and then I hastle people in the shop about it and its so frustrating.We had a virus so I was unable to reply till now and lastly I will post a photo on2 the site once I invest in a camera a digital camera your tanks are awesome.Regards from me again.

 

Sorry to hear about the fry but it will all work out, sometimes it takes awhile to get it right. It did me anyway I'm not sure I understood, but did you mean when you did a water change you put water from the parents tank in? If so, what you want to do in use fresh dechlorinated water for your water changes and do 50% every day in the fry tank. I use a 20gal for a fry tank since the ammonia and nitrites and nitrates don't build up as fast. The little fry keepers are cute but don't give them a lot of room to move around and whatever is going on in the big tank will be going on in the little tank also since the water circulates through the small tank. Good luck.
Carol

 

HI ya Carol,nice 2 catch up with you again.Sorry what I meant was I refilled the fry tank with the water which I took out of the parents tank which is a seprate tank alltogether.The fry were put in to a smaller tank on their own which was a big mistake.You are right as always(a complament).The next time I will put the parents on one side of the tank and have their fry on the other side of the same tank with a devider of glass in between,it makes so much sence to have a much bigger tank as I had the fry in a 20 litre tank,theres my problem I can see it clearly now that you pointed out the more space in the tank the lower the levels of nitrate,nitite,and amonia.That's got to be my answer I'm so excited thanks heaps for that you are so clever id never have thought of that.I just brought a 170-180 litre tank which I will set up in a spare room.I just hope thay give it a rest for a bit all this breeding gets to be like abit much I sure could do with a rest from it.Christine.

 

Thanks for the compliment I've made my share of mistakes and the fish don't always co-operate. Now that they've started breeding they will probably keep on(not always good for you LOL)
Hang in there, skip a spawn if you need to, get things ready and then have another go at it.
Yes the bigger tank does make a lot of sense and some of the reasons had to be explained to me by an angel breeder when my first angels spawned. Angels can lay as many as 200 eggs in each spawning( mine are 75-100) and even while their still eggs they need lots of oxgen, any ammonia at all can cause the wigglers and free swimmers to die that's why such large water changes and the bottom needs to be vacuumed thoroughly after each feeding. BBS or any food left in the tank can foul it enough to hurt the fry at this stage. Any ammonia can burn their developing fins and cause them to be deformed and there will be a few no matter what you do. All this to say as near perfect water as you can get is almost more important than what you feed them.
Another idea, since you will be doing so many water changes you will use a large amount of dechlor. What you can do is leave enough water for a water change set for 24 hours and use just enough warm dechlorinated water to bring it up to the correct temp and this will save dechlor. I'm rambling again ;D
Carol

 

Dear Carol what does LOL,and BBS mean?Excuse my ignorance and my spelling which needs lots of improvement.It is all so helpful especially the rambling just when you begin to make sence to me then all the rambling stops.In other words please do ramble overiousley you know so much more than I do and its very hard to get info from folk "especially petshop owners",it's all very frustrating.I don't seem to be able to contact an angelfish breeder which is my biggest problem I may just have to become one all by myself,and how do I stop the little buggers from spawning ill have to separate them after each h2o change.Ill certanly look into this once I return from nz in 5 weeks time then ill be full on into it for sure.Will catch up later am enjoying my brake from the angle fry.

 

Tootie, LOL is laughing out loud. BBS is baby brine shrimp. I have an index of all these fishie abbreviations. I'll see if I can find it. Isn't Butterfly the greatest?! ;D