Help Raising Angel Fry

anewbie · May 30, 2021

My parents always have problems with the babies once they go free swimming but i have them in a community tank. Personally what i think you need to do is either steal the frys when they are wrigglers or put the parents in a tank by themselves. Also if you want the parents to raise them it is a learning process and it will take 4 to 8 spawns for them to get anywhere. In my community tank they can now reliably raise them till free swimming as long as i leave the lights on in the room (not the tank lights) at night. Yes fishes have good eye sight and a little bit of light work miracles. This is my tank - the black one on the left (barely visible in the shadows) and the platinum are the parents of the others (the off springs are black and gold with one black having a clown fin):

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If you do steal the frys it is imperative that the tank be kept extremely clean and you siphon out uneaten food and dead frys using a turkey blaster or eye dropper (you can also use a snail to eat the uneaten food). Also you need to have a plan. While it is fun to raise the frys you will have a lot (i only did it once and i had 50 survive and 10 deaths - i just don't have room for more angels right now but i want to breed specific pairs when i have the space). It is hard to imagine that these large angels once looked like:

Uberhoust · May 31, 2021

Overfeeding is a distinct possibility. The bellies were quite large and the microscope showed a large number of nauplii in their stomachs. The Goby has been moved out of the parents tank and I am going to try to raise more with the parents this time. I think the oxygen levels should have been ok because the tank was only 3" deep, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Water analysis after fishing the last dead one out showed 0 for ammonia and 0 for nitrate.

Parents tank got a deep cleaning yesterday. All the wood and plants taken out of the tank cleaned, trimmed, and put back in (I had so much java fern and valisnaria that I had to throw some away no room anywhere). Male angel has started his own cleaning of their favorite piece of wood.

anewbie · May 31, 2021

Don't over clean the wood as it has biofilm which the frys love. Also when I said over-feeding I meant the decay of uneaten food. Snails of course help to eat this food but the frys are extremely sensitive to smallest trace of ammonia. I presume you had a mature sponge filter in the tank you used to raise the fry (which also has a lot of biofilm helpful for the frys) still if you don't have snails i would use something similar to a turkey blaster to suck out uneaten food between feedings.

Uberhoust · May 31, 2021

Unfortunately the wood was cleaned last night

, and I did a 75% water change, not too much biofilm will be left I had a couple of spots of cyano bacteria and the tank had not been deeply cleaned for nearly 1.5 years. I hadn't considered that the fry might eat biofilm, I was concerned with maintaining biofilm when I had the goby in that tank but she is now in my main display tank. The previous fry tank did not have a sponge filter, at the time all I had were HOBs and one internal. I have sponge filters now in a few of my tanks to start their cycle. In the fry tank all the extra food and dead fry were removed twice daily with a water change. This next go round the fry will mostly be with the parents in a 37 gallon tank, and only about 30 will be attempted in a separate tank. I can move some wood from another tank into the parents tank.

Raising Angels is an interest to my wife but listening to airpumps and bubbling water is pushing her limits. I have to keep all the tanks at the level that you cannot hear the water fall into the tank.

Uberhoust · Jun 2, 2021

Well there may not be any biofilm in the tank but that hasn't stopped the parents. The next cycle has officially started with them laying eggs over the last hour. Hopefully I will have some pictures to add soon. I was fearing that working in the tank would set back the next cycle but it is on time.