New here. Need a bit of advice. Angels breeding

Hi all

I currently have a 4ft tall setup that is more a community tank. In it now I have 2 marble angels, 2 gold pearlscale angels, 2 tinfoils (came with the tank when I bought it about 2 months ago), 2 mollies, dwarf gourami and 2 approx 6cm BN Plecos. I bought the 2 gold pearlscale angels around 4w ago already adults as I have had my 2 marbel angels for around 16mos now in a 3ft tank. Lo and behold 2w the 2 goldies paired up and we found our first batch of eggs on the filters. I'm not really wanting to do breeding but was still so excited. Decided to leave them and 3 days later they were all gone. Fast forward to this Sunday and lo and behold another batch of eggs. They must have just spawned them just before we decided to do a water change UGH. Anyway we found them just as we were doing the change. Parents attacking everything in site LOL. By monday night there were around 30 or so white eggs (my daughter had fun counting them) and Tuesday morning we watched the female move the eggs from the side wall of the filter to an imitation plant leaf nearby. Sooo cute to watch. The male just about attacks the glass when you get too close (well I'm assuming that's the mail because the other angel looks after the eggs and this one chases everything in creation away hehe. I don't know much about sexing otherwise). By Tuesday evening we had loads of wigglers on the leaves so after reading a bit I decided it was time to intervene. I pulled as many as I could from the leaf with a turkey baster and put them into a container with tank water. Since then I have floated the container in the big tank. Mom and dad still protecting and can see the wigglers. I have done 50% water changes daily and only seem to have lost a few wigglers. There's a huge batch of around 100 all attached to along thread-like thing, and another batch of around 50 or so in another section, a couple on their own around the bottom and around 10 or so starting to dart around in the water. Is this normal? I've read about waiting to feed until they are all free swimming which I reckon should be around Sunday or Monday. Should I be adding anything else to the water? The container is fairly small at the moment. I will change it tonight to a bigger one and will prepare a large jar I have for Sunday (need to get a filter today and will hang it in the 4ft tank until sunday or monday and then put water from main tank with filter into big jar - jar will take around 15L of water and is a temporary measure for now). I also need to start buying some sort of food. I have read that BBS are the best. I assume I will need to buy eggs and hatch them every 24hours? What exactly should I be asking for at the LFS? I'm in the south of Jhb and there is only a couple I know of in the area so want to make sure I have all my info correct before I go there. What else should I be buying? A sponge filter (I have a thermomenter already). I have a small airstone which I can use already as well in the temp tank. How big a tank do you think I should get for growing the babes in? I currently have a 45cm one in my daughters room which has neons and baby molly fry in it. WIll this size again be ok or should I go for a larger one? Any other foods I can buy to feed the fry if they get that far to free swimming??

Thanks all
Shona

 

Welcome and enjoy TASA.
Veegal would be the best person to speak to.
Brine shrimp is the best thing to feed baby angels

 

Welcome to TASA, Veegal and Zafgak are the Angel Experts here..

oooh Donny you are too fast for me ush:

 

Welcome to TASA
I agree with the first 2 posts Veeg and Zafgak are the best to answer you post here
and baby brine shrimp is the best for you fry, that is what I feed mine

 

Hi Shona and welcome to TASA I've actually posted quite a lot about the breeding of angels here so in order to avoid getting cramps in my fingers from all the typing, I'll list all the links and you can read at your leisure

The only thing which would not have been previously covered, would be the wriggers which you have moved into a separate container. You will be losing quite a few of the wrigglers I'm afraid UNLESS you can keep moving them around in the container. Let me explain a little more as to why I predict this happening......once the eggs become wrigglers, the parents are constantly moving them around from leaf to leaf and picking up those that drop off etc etc. This is to ensure that ALL the wrigglers get sufficient oxygen. If you look at the wrigglers currently you'll see that quite a lot of them will be sitting on top of each other - those at the bottom are the poor buggers that are not getting a lot of oxygen.

I'll do a search for the other links now and post them shortly. If you do have any specific questions though, please just ask and I'll answer those directly.

 

Vee, there are so many requests, maybe you should compile it all into 1 thread, which Rory can sticky in the newbie section.
There is always place for good Howto's

 

Okay - I THINK these will answer the majority of your questions....

http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?t=1535&highlight=angel
http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?t=685&highlight=angel

Any other questions you may have - just post here and I'll deal with each of them separately

That's not a bad idea Gilbert - I'll try find the time to type something up over the next couple of days.

 

Thanks a lot guys. Great help. I'll keep moving the wigglers around as much as possible to give them O2. Could put a small air stone in on very low? I figured I would probably lose most of these. would be nice to manage to save a couple but as I had no intention of breeding anyway it's not a train smash. Just want to give them a bit of a chance. With having a breeding pair in a community tank I do plan on getting a breeding tank if I decide to breed.. is a 2ft big enough for that? I just feel so sorry for my other fish in community tank because they get herded into one corner of the tank all the time. Maybe I must just infuture start removing the eggs as soon as they have laid them esp if they are going to lay every 7-10 days YIKES

 

whew just changed the water on my little hatchlings and stirred things up a bit. Split the threads up quite a bit. There are around 30 swimming to the top, probably around 80 more still at the bottom. Difficult to tell but so cute I can start making out their 2 little dotted eyes. Should so many be swimming to the top already? 2 days after wigglers? Guess I had better get to the LFS first thing tomorrow because at this rate they are going to need feeding definitely by Sunday