fry keep dying....

[Mattzilla]

hi guys

i have had a few batches of angel fry now with not too much success

they kepp getting to free swimming stage but then they seem to die off a lot

they are in a small tank at about 27 deg C with two large sponge filters

they are given regular water changes and are fed on baby brine (frozen) and finley crushed flake.

i am raising hundreds of other babuies all the time but the angels seem to be not doing very well

what am i doing wrong with them??? i thought they where meant to be easy to raise????

thanks for the help

matt

[Merrilyn]

Matt, it seems to be a combination of water quality problems and nutrition.

The frozen baby brine may still be too large for the fry to eat, so you're going to have to bite the bullet and start hatching your own or try feeding them vinegar eels or micro worms. You can move onto the frozen baby brine after a couple of weeks.

Cut out the powdered flake altogether, that's just adding ammonia to your water as it decomposes. Bump the temperature up to 30, and don't start feeding till you can see that the egg sack has been fully absorbed. They won't eat anything till then. And you'll need to do daily water changes, syphoning the bottom of the tank each time.

Your sponge filters may be running too fast, slow them right down so there is very little current in the tank. Baby fish will swim against the current till they become exhausted and die. You just need enough bubbles to break the surface of the water, but not enough to create current.

Good luck.

[the_oracle]

Matt,
If all doesn't work like what Merrilyn said, maybe you can try to swop the couples. Try with a proven male or female, the one that has ever raised a batch successfully. What I can suspect is that they have weak gene...........


Sanie.

[DiscusMad]

i use micro worms and they work well then after 1 + 1/2 weeks i start crushing colour bits to a powder and use the 2 untill they are big enough for other foods

[Ben]

Hi Matt,

Get your hands on some cyclop-eeze. Its great stuff and works better than BS in my opinion.

Keep an eye on ammonia and nitrites as small amounts will really nock the baby fish around.

If there is a chance its bacterial i would opt for one of those internal UV's. they work a treat for such an application and wont break the budget.

cheers
Ben

[Mattzilla]

thanks foer the tips guys....i'll take your advice on board and hope that i get better results from now on

matt

[DiscusMad]

good luck matt
i have a new pair formed they are defending the eggs very well

[Mattzilla]

the pair is laying again today so fingers crossed with the new batch

i bought some brine shrimp eggs so now i gotta figure out how to hatch the little buggers!!!!

will keep you posted

Matt

[mistakes r crucial]

Matt,

When I was breeding Angels I had a similar problem until I read an article written by one of America's leading Angel breeders. He said that if you don't feed live foods to Angel fry then you will end up with 0-50 out of a batch of 500. Feed live brine and I think you'll find you will very quickly run out of tank space, I did.
MAC

[Mattzilla]

thanks mac

I started a batch of brine shrimp for the first time in my life last night

so i'm onto it and fingers crossed

fry went free swimming yesterday and i am hoping the brine shrimp will hatch by the time i get home from work today.

can you please tell me how much salt and brine eggs per litre of water you use???

thanks

matt

[mistakes r crucial]

I used 2ltr coke bottles (bottoms cut off) with about 1.5ltrs of water and placed them in a small 2ft tank half full of water with a heater. To get it right I always used a hydrometer ($19) and added enough salt so that I could see the green line about 5mm above the water. Ph was 8.2 - 8.4 and the temp varied a bit but I had better results if I kept it around the 28c mark. I've had them hatch within 10-12 hours at times which always surprised me but it can be done. I used one level teaspoon of eggs per bottle.

LoL, just make sure you don't forget to put the air stone back in after you feed or you'll come back to a stinking mess, they stink at the best of times but try forgetting one for a few days, throw up material. You'll probably need two bottles going, just start another one 12-24 hours after the first and you'll never run dry. Any left overs I used to freeze rather than throw them away but you soon end up with a freezer full. In the end I just used to throw them in another 2ft tank, shells an all and grow them out on spirulina powder for 2-3 weeks and feed them to my Discus breeders. Have fun!
MAC

[ozarowana]

I forgot to turn the air back on the other day too :oops:

Rinse and wipe down the inside of your hatching container between each batch aswell. It may be bacteria that inhibits future attempts and you get poor hatch rates.

[Mattzilla]

unfortunately most of the fry have died because i went away for the weekend to a wedding in the hunter valley....

some where alive when we got home but they where very skinny and weak. i hatched some more brine shrimp and they got stuck into them but i am not hoping for many survivers.

the pair are botyh starting to drop their breeding tubes again so i might just get them to spawn again and start over.

i'm larning something new each time though and i am confident that the next batch will survive no problems

cheers
matt

[mistakes r crucial]

Yes, it took me a few batches too Matt but believe me when you've got it down pat you'll be scratching your head as to where you're going to put them all lol.
MAC

[Tariq]

the same thing was happening to me, some ppl on another forum said that my tank may be too big and that a smaller one would be sufficient. So i am just waiting on another batch of eggs! But since reading this post I think it could be that my sponge filter may be too high! and is creating a current!