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