PVC pipe for Angelfish spawning

The male Silver Angel.

Pieces of flat slate rock have been the standard surface to use when spawning Angelfish. I came across some short pieces of PVC pipe and, as you can see, my Angelfish pair laid their eggs on it. It only took about 2 days for them to become very interested in the PVC as a spawning site. Place it at an Angel, I mean angle, like you see in the photo.

Here’s the mom.

At first I gave this pair the opportunity to raise the babies, but that didn’t work. The next time they spawned I removed the eggs and PVC and laid it on it’s side in a shallow tank with a heater and aeration.

Then I added Hydrogen Peroxide drops as an anti-fungal agent. I used about 3 milliliters per 2 gallons. As you can see, I also attached a”T” piece of PVC to the tube to prevent the PVC from rolling on it’s side and crushing the eggs and babies.

The babies hatch and spend a few days on the bottom of the tank.

 The baby Angles, I mean Angels, grew fast on baby Brine Shrimp and Banana Worms. Now they are eating crushed flake food as well. I have been using Earthworm flakes because it’s a high-protein food.

Angels will lay their eggs wherever they can, but using a flat rock or PVC allows you to remove it and raise the babies.  A sturdy plastic plant with big leaves makes a good site, too. I have seen Angel eggs on heater tubes and the side of the aquarium.

Eggs laid on a branch.

Troubles with Angelfish

Some of my adult Angelfish have died recently. Two different tanks and different symptoms.

It started over a month ago with my female Marble Angel. She was the mother of the 70 babies that are now living in various tanks here in Eastern Iowa.  One day I noticed she looked lethargic, sitting near the bottom. It was puzzling. The next day she was dead!

I suspect that she banged into the side or top of the aquarium and could not recover. An aquarium is a very foreign environment, even to a fish.  Vertical glass walls with a plastic or glass top.

One thing we can do to avoid this problem is to turn the lights on or off gradually. When I go into the fishroom I turn on an overhead room light. Then I turn on a light over some houseplants I have.  Finally, I start turning on the tank lights.

At night I do the reverse, of course. Fish lights off first, then the plants , then the room light.

Then I lost this poor girl to Heximita, which I wrote about in a previous post.

THEN, I was given 4 adult Angelfish!

A neighbor gave me these fish. Originally, he bought 2 of my young Gold Angelfish, $1 each!.  I didn’t know he lived two blocks away. I gave him some plants, and later helped set up his Angelfish rearing tank, complete with brine shrimp, etc. Then, he wanted some Jack Dempseys and …ta da!… I had Jack Dempseys to give him so… he gave me Angelfish.

A breeding pair of Marble Koi Angels.

…plus this Angel on the right.

A week later this fish was dead.

AND another adult that he gave me died!!! I didn’t have it long enough to get a photo of it. That one had ragged fins and a bloated belly and was no surprise but the one up above… well, it has just confused me.

I guess the point is…some fish you can save. Some you can’t. Some diseases and injuries come on so fast there is no time to diagnose the problem. In those cases I think it’s a good idea to think about the general condition of the aquarium and make substantial water changes. You can test the water all you want but I still say, CHANGE the WATER!!! I’m talking like 20 percent every day for a week. After all, it’s called FRESH WATER right? Observe the fish awhile and see if any of the fish are being harassed by others.

Try not to be discouraged when a fish dies. If you learn from it and stick with it you will find yourself raising fish by the hundreds!

You can blame me when that happens.

Interesting color variation in Angelfish

I kept a few of the Angelfish babies. Most of the babies were Marbled. Some were Gold, and some were the wild Silver pattern.

Only one of them had this Silver pattern of broken stripes. Is this how “Clown Angels” were discovered?

I also like the little dark one with the white ventral fins.

I kept this one because I thought the top fin, the dorsal, had an interesting pattern.

The latest fishy pictures and videos

The momma Marble Angel.

The Silver Molly male and the tank full of baby Endler’s and Mollies

The Angelfish parents

Here are two pics of the Angelfish parents. Their babies turned out to be many color combinations. All Silver like the dad, or Marble like the mom, or nearly black, or dark striped, or even all gold. The fact that some babies came out gold means that each of these parents carries the recessive gold gene.

Raising baby Angelfish

Over the past year my two pair of Angelfish have spawned dozens of times. They have laid thousands of eggs. A few months ago I gave some of those eggs to a friend to raise. I watched some of his techniques. He used Hydrogen Peroxide as a fungus inhibitor for the eggs. When he changes water in the fry tank he doesn’t use “fresh” water, he uses aged water from another one of his fish tanks.
My MAIN problem was that I was was having no luck hatching Brine Shrimp, which is what the babies feed on. Turns out my shrimp eggs were old. Very old. Ancient. Fossil Brine Shrimp eggs.
Once I got new shrimp eggs it was all easy after that.

The male Silver and female Marble spawned on this fake Amazon Sword plant.

Baby Angels are in the 10 gallon tank. A bowl inside of the tank has another batch of Angel babies but shortly after becoming free-swimming they died. The two jars on the left is the Brine Shrimp hatchery.

As the fry grew larger I filled up the 10 gallon. Eventually I split them into two 10-gallon tanks. There are about 90 babies total.

Here are half the baby Angels as I am moving them into a 55 gallon. There are a few baby Peppered Corydoras in there, too.

I’ve picked out eight young angels to keep for myself. Notice there are gold genes in my fish, too. The babies are Silver, Marble, and Gold!!

Silver and Marble Angel spawning

This morning I noticed the big Silver male was chasing the male Marble Angel.

Tonight I went downstairs to shut off the lights on my fish tanks and this is what I saw:

ICH is a 4-letter word

Ich, the parasite. Evidenced by little white spots that spread like mad. Feared by aquarists of all abilities. You can go for years and years and never see Ich. Then, buy one fish and a nightmare begins.

I thought about re-living my errors and stupidity regarding Ich, but let’s just say I have made errors and been very stupid.

A healthy Marble Angel. It never occurred to me to take photos of my fish when they had Ich!

Let me get right to the two major suggestions to prevent Ich from ruining our fishkeeping fun.

Number one:  Set up a quarantine tank. Keep new fish in the tank for a month. Simple, yes, but most casual aquarium keepers can’t do this. You may have only one tank.

Number two: You see Ich. What to do?

I am not going to pour in Malachite Green and Formalin or Methylene Blue or Rid-Ich or Nox-Ich or whatever they call it. I am going to raise the temperature of my tank to at least 86 F degrees. I will go as high as 90 degrees but no higher. Importantly, I will crank up the aeration to the infected tank. (If you are using outside power filters drop the water level an inch or two until the water is splashing in, this will help oxygenate it.)

I am going to leave it there, and some fish will suffer and some may die but the Ich will definitely die.

I will leave the temperature high for 10 days . This will kill Ich at all stages of it’s life cycle.

Other things I can do are to make some water changes to improve water quality. Make sure you have the new water heated up close to the 86F of the tank.

In some cases, I would add aquarium salt to the tank. If my infected fish are Platies or Cichlids I would not hesitate to add salt. Start with a teaspoon per 5 gallons of water. Wait a few hours and add another teaspoon per 5 gallons.  If there are Neons and other sensitive or expensive fish be cautious about the salt. Be prepared to make a 25% water change if you see that it stresses the fish too much.

If you have live plants in the tank they may begin to fall apart at high temperatures. If they do, take them out, throw them away. Don’t put them in another tank. The Ich can go along for the ride. Same with nets and anything else you put into the tank.

Honestly, good luck to you and your fish if they get Ich. Fight it, don’t give up. You might lose some fish but you will rebuild. Don’t quit keeping fish! The rewards are too great.

More Angels…why not

I know this isn’t The Angelfish Blog but here are a few pics of my Angelfish taken a few months ago. They are bigger and prettier now.