Angelfish fry question

Sad news, this morning most of the fry were missing, I searched and found them dead in the sump. I blame myself but will know better next time. This morning there were still about 20 left, so I switched off the sump, put the heater and a sponge filter in the tank. The sponge filter is rated for 50L and its in a 220L aquarium, better than nothing.
So Ive got 2 questions:
If the sump stops running aka. stagnant water, with no heater and a bunch of dead angelfish fry, Will the bacteria on my bioballs die?
and I left the CO2 running in the sump because I was in a hurry this morning, Will the water become soda water and thus dangerous when I switch the pumps back on? (The CO2 is in a closed off compartment to the bioballs)

Thanks,
Mitch

 

http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/s...th-my-1.8m-tanks&p=84513&viewfull=1#post84513

I think this is the post Prof is talking about concerning the pipe overflow.

 

The DEVIL, with Angel fish and their fry...!

so sorry to hear
But I'm sure you suspected as much would happen .

May I suggest, IF you really want to spawn and raise in the communal tank setting..that you measure a piece of plastic light diffusor grating(egg crate) or any other open frame-type divider.
Electrical conduit, made into a frame (with elbows) would do as well.

Use it as a divider panel...to FRY PROOF your overflow:noworry:
Cover it in Shade cloth or Flyscreen(non-metal if possible.)

Wedge in position closest to Overflow chamber.
It should cover front to back and be from base(below substrate surface) to above your water line...

Now you will have adequate water flow THROUGH the panel for it's practical entire surface area.

BUT the fry are physically separated from direct overflow influence ..and it's deadly tug o' war over the weir...

Problem-wise...You have Too many variables now, Mitchell.

Aerate, asap in the sump.
Add a bacterial starter, AFTER you do a water change of the chamber where you introduced CO2..then it doesn't matter if you have a locally low pH, OR if water has re-equilibrated it's pH.

The Sponge filter, even if correctly sized, can do NOTHING for you besides some initial aeration, circulation, and physical mechanical filtration.
Biologicaly it is not colonised, nor seeded, so does no Nitrification.

You have shut-off your filtration circuit, and THAT is of concern.
Angel parents when in full swing can spawn 2-4 times a month if you must know.
SO...
take care of the PARENTS, and work out solutions for future fry, and your later spawning attempts.

Bacteria will survive on bioballs, but biofilm will foul, and be inundated by the lack of adequate OXYGEN!!! This WILL affect those balls that are totally submerged more than those kept wet (as if lightly sprayed)...or the topmost floating layer if in a chamber full of bioballs.
Plastic bio media have material characteristics that lend themselves to different bacterial surface adhesion, and if I was you, I would remove them ..ALL of them, and rinse in some TANK water(from above), and replace into sump.

A simple swirl in a dish of tank water of a batch at a time is all that's required.

AGAIN, to restablish equilibrium swiftly and gently DONT forget the Bacterial starter, eg. Seachem Stability (my personal choice) or Use what you have at hand and know to work for you...
Aerate vigorously in the sump.

ALSO introduce an airstone or two into the largest filter chamber where the majority of your media sits.

RInse your sponges in tapwater... we dont want nitrification in your prefiltration, or mechanical filter at this stage.
Remove any visible dead fry.

Test for major parameters, NH3(Free), NO2, pH....
to overcome this pothole you have inadvertently caused by switching OFF your sump.

Note cut feed quantity to about 1/3 -1/4 of normal while you keep an eye on things. I'm sure you can return to 1/2 normal feed qauntity after a week to be safe and sure...

 

Hi Altum,

Thanks for correcting me and sorry for the confusion that I have possibly caused with regard to the HYDROMETER. Thanks to Altum's detailed description I think this issue has now been cleared up properly.

Happy brine shrimp hatching after all this.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Prof, re post #42. Is that the correct link?

 

Hi Tom.K,

Yes thanks, that is the correct link, thanks for finding that again.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Fry are all gone.
For interest sake what would be the right concentration of salt for growing not hatching BS?

 

Hi Mitchell,

I am sorry to have to ask, but why do you want to grow out bs? is that what you are asking or am I not understanding this properly.

Bottom line is that the highest nutritive value of bs is within 24 h of hatching, after that the bs rapidly loose their nutritive value and then you are wasting your time. If you want larger bs, buy frozen bs which is much more cost effective.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

I find it interesting to watch them, since I was young I always wanted "sea monkey's".

 

Yesterday the parents laid their 3rd set of eggs on the leaf of a amazon sword. I siphoned some tank water into another bare tank, added methylene blue, a heater and a airstone. I cut off the plant leaf and put it in the tank. This time I hope Ive eliminated all of the variables.

The tank with the eggs is a 2ft, it only has about 8cm of water in it at the moment. When should I start slowly filling it from the parents setup. Daily now are daily after the eggs have hatched?

 

Methylene blue belongs in the museum of tropical fish keeping, most bacteria that are harmful are resistant to it and only beneficial bacteria are damaged by it. What this brings me to is that in your new tank you are going to require a corner filter as a biological filter asap or else you are headed for problems again.

YOu can start filling the tank as soon as you see the fry hatching but I would remove some of the water to remove the methylene blue as it is also harmful for the fry. Then you will have to see how the fry develop in the same steps as they did with the parents with the difference that the parents are not looking after them. They may therefore get spread all over the aquarium but that should be OK.

Let us hope this will work this time.

Kind regards,

DIrk

 

Hi Mitchell,

@Dirk Bellstedt, (if you dont mind me adding Prof Dirk)

When I use to breed Angels and raise fry artificially, I used 3 liter glass containers for the fry for at least the first two weeks. I'd put all the fry in one for the first couple of days, then as time passed I used to split them up into groups of three, just because I only had 3 of those Jugs! I found in the smaller space the fry had less swimming to do and ate much better as the concentration of bbs per volume is much higher. Of course, as there was no filtration it meant twice daily water changes . Survival rate for me was increased greatly compared to even a 1ft tank which I used at first. At the same time one also end up with a high culling rate as survival rate goes up.
I never enjoyed that much.....

Rgds,

Marco

 

I have removed a bucket of water and replaced it with a bucket of water from the main tank to reduce the amount of methylene blue. The water still has a blue tint and I was wondering if some AC would remove it. I dont have a corner filter and Its going to be a while before I can get one, so can I just drop the stocking bag of AC near the airstone?

 

Im only starting to realise how fragile these babies are...
Today the airpump that circulates the water failed and by the time I got home half the population died.

 

Hi Mitchell,

We obviously realize why you have removed these fry from their parents, but you can see from your experiences in which you have lost these fry how important the role is that the parents play and how much easier they actually make it to raise angel fry. In my opinion, I prefer it to have the parents do the difficult raising work for me and once the fry are a reasonable size that I then remove them from their parents.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Angelfish have laid their 4th set of eggs. I hate to admit it but they are in a 50L, I put them there so that no other fish would eat the eggs (reason why batch 1 didnt hatch), so that the fry wouldnt get sucked into a filter (reason why batch 2 died - the 50L has a sponge filter) and so that the parents can take care of the fry (Assume this is the reason for the death of fry in batch 3).

 

Its day 2 and for some reason many of the eggs have dissappeared, Im assuming the parents ate them. They dissappear in small patches, could this be because the parents eat the infertile eggs and those surrounding them? There's still atleast 50 eggs left.

 

I have some free swimming fry, but algea is taken over after I have removed the other fish from the community tank as soon as we saw the eggs. Can I put ottos back in the tank with the parents and fry?