New and with a question :)

Hi all,

Ive just come across to here, to see if anyone could tell me how different breeding Angelfish to Discus fish is. Ive wanted to breed Discus for ages, but when i found out it would cost me over £300 in Ro water a month, i couldn't afford it being only 15, so i was wondering if breeding Angelfish is cheaper, and what you need to do?

Ive opened this thread at the discus site to see if my design would be big enough for one pair of discus, but they said it wouldn't, so any advances on this for breeding angel?

http://forum.bidka.org/showthread.php?t=22263

I was wondering how often i would need to do water changes? whether i would need Ro water for them to hatch? and how often i would need to feed them? As well as, is there anywhere in the Uk that show them? Also what can i do with the baby's once grown? is there a high demand for them if i was to sell them for £5 each, is that expensive for an Angelfish?

Thanks alot
Mike

Hi Mike, wishing you a big warm welcome to the forum
Now on to your questions , I have bred Discus myself in the past. If you havent bred before than Angels can be a good stepping stone onto Discus (or you may even get addicted to the Angels ) as they are alot more forgiving than Discus.
Discus can be happily bred & kept on a budget but they are alot of money to loose if you make a mistake, where as Angels will be alot easier to get going on.
Angels will breed happily in normal (conditioned) tap water, 18" x 18" cubes are more than big enough for breeding purposes.
As with breeding all fish the key is keeeping your water in top condition, I personaly do small water changes every day with breeding fish but with good filtration as little as once a week is fine. When young angels are freeswimming then the best feed for them is live brineshrimp but many have raised fry on fine flake. I only feed fry twice a day but some feed breeders alot more often and others get away with once a day.
As to showing Angels, there are many regional fish keeping clubs hold small shows sutable for Angels, hopefully in the future we will hold our own yearly show.
Now to demand, your local fish shop may be interested in young angels, ebay is good for selling and there are various fish sites that are good for selling angels on. As to prices, that depends entirely on the type & quality of your youngsters, with the rarer types fetching a little more money, you can get anything from 80p to £5 depending on size quality & strain.
Hope this helps, Lisa

Hi Michael,
Welcome to the forum,
Angels are, in my experience, much easier than discus to breed, they are less demanding in terms of water quality, being willing to breed at a much wider range of pH's and hardness, but like discus do prefer softer, slightly acidic water. Being slightly smaller fish they are perhaps better suited to the tanks you have planned.
As was pointed out on the discus forum, Breeding fish in bottom tanks tend to be more nervous, and that applies equally to angels, so I would change your plans slightly and have the smaller tanks on the top for the breeders and a larger grow on tank underneath.

how often i would need to do water changes?

That's a debatable point, personally I use fine quartz gravel on the bottom of my tanks and do 10% water changes on the youngsters growing on about 2-3 times a week. Adult fish get 10% once a week, and no water changes at all when guarding eggs/young, unless absolutely necessary, and even then less than 10%.
Most breeders use bare bottom tanks and do much larger, more frequent (in some cases twice daily) water changes.

would need Ro water for them to hatch?

No, although as already noted, you might find it useful to lower the hardness/ph; there are chemical methods for doing this which are much cheaper than using ro.

How often i would need to feed them?

My youngsters get fed baby brine shrimp twice a day.
Older fish get fed flake twice a day. Adults can survive without being fed for well over a week (if going on holiday for example), but the younger the fish, the shorter the period they can survive, that said, even babies that are a few days old won't come to any harm missing the odd meal.

is there anywhere in the Uk that show them?

Other than as part of a general fish show, there are no organised angelfish shows. I think as the forum expands we might have a photo competion.

Also what can i do with the baby's once grown? is there a high demand for them

You have 3 options :-
Option 1
Sell them through adverts on line with sites like ebay, aquarists classified and in the fish for sale section of this forum. As angels can produce several hundred babies in a batch (to date my record is 652) you may find this a rather limited market, especially if you're asking £5 a time. I own my own retail store and my angels go out from anywhere between £2.90 for very small (body size about that of a 5p piece - to be honest, I don't usually sell them this small, unless my breeding tanks are really starting to look over crowded)
£4.90 for smalls (body size about that of a 10p piece, these sell fastest)
then going up to £7.90 - £9.90 (for larger youngsters approaching breeding age/size about 4-5cm body diameter)
Larger adult fish usually sell at between £12.90 & £19.90 depending on size and variety.

Option 2
Find a local retailer who is willing to pay you for them. Many retailers are wary of buying from members of the general public, as quality and sizing is often very poor, and price expectations can be unrealistic.....
A few tips....
1. Don't just turn up on a busy saturday or sunday afternoon with a bag of fish. Make contact, preferably by going in, at a quite time, tell them what you have, how many you have, and when they're likely to be ready.
2. Be prepared to let the retailer have a few sample fish for free, to give him an idea of the size/health/quality of the fish you're producing.
3. Don't expect the retailer to do your culling. No one likes to cull, but if you have sick, stunted or deformed fish, then it's your job to cull them. Retailers don't like to have to cull fish either, and the general public won't pay good money for second rate fish.
4. Don't expect the retailer to take all your stock. Depending on the size of the shop, they're unlikely to want more than 50 or so at a time, so be prepared to split the batch between several retailers, but....
5. Don't flood the local market. If you've just sold 50 fish to one retailer, don't go and sell 50 more to his competitor 3 miles away. One way around this, especially when working with the small system you're planning, is to try to select pairs that produce several different varieties. For example, you could have a pair that produced 25% golds, 25% platinums, 25% gold marbles and 25% platinum marbles.
This has two benefits, firstly one retailer might happily take 25 or each where he would only begrudgingly take 40 of a single variety. Secondly, you could sell say the golds and platinum marbles to one retailer and the others to another retailer without upsetting either.
6. If you expect to sell fish to a retailer, it helps if you also buy things from them! That doesn't mean you have to buy something every time you sell him fish, and it doesn't mean that he expects everything he pays you to come straight back. But, if all you do is go to him and try to sell him your fish, and then go and buy your supplies on the internet, "because it's cheaper", don't be surprised when he starts getting his angels from his regular wholesaler. Not only will his wholesaler offer a wider selection, delivered when the retailer wants, in the quantities he wants, they're also probably cheaper! It is for this reason that many retailers only offer store credit, rather than cash.
At my shop we don't generally buy in angels, as I'm producing more than we can sell as it is! But with other fish we pay cash, and offer about 25% of the price that we expect to sell them for. This reflect the fact that the cost of the fish isn't the only cost, each of our tanks costs us about £5 a week to run, that covers heating lighting, rent, rates, fish food and the wages of the staff who clean and feed them. It's also worth remembering that if a retailer pays you £1 and sells the fish at £4, he's actually selling them for £3.33 + 67p VAT which goes straight to the tax man!
7. Don't expect to make a profit! Breeding angels is a great hobby, but making a living from it would be hard work, especially if your parents expect a contribution towards the electric bill!

Option 3
Sell them at fish auctions organised by local, or national fishkeeping clubs. I've no experience of this method, but I know Lisa has, see the thread about the BCA auction.

Hope that helps

Thanks alot everyone! wasn't expecting such brilliant answers and so in depth answers aswell, really appreciate the detail you put in.

It seems to me that it looks easier and cheaper to do, and im glad im to going to need to use ro water.
i would also really like to anyway i can on this forum as i see its new? Try and get this as popular as the previous discus forum i was on!

One thing i was going to ask was, could i do it in stages? as in could i have the angel pair in one cube, and then after a few weeks of the fry ( do you call angel fish babies fry? or is it different?) being with them transfer them to the second cube? then to the grow out in the 3ft? or wouldn't that work?

Also what retail shop do you own, do you have an online shop? Because i cant seem to find anyone that specialise in Angel fish?

Thanks alot
Mike

Angelfish are good fun to get into & you may find the genetics side of things interesting too
Yes, very young freeswimming Angels are called fry. Any help we can get with promoting the site is more than welcome, thanks . Maybe if you want a project then you could keep a breeding diary with regular updates & images for us to help others new to Angels.
As to breeders & supliers, many of our members have youngsters available, some you would need to travel to, others post.
have a good read through the forum, ask any questions and work out what types you would like to start with.
As to moving the fry at various stages, that is no problem, I would probably move the parents at the first stage (it is easier) then as they get bigger move the youngsters into the growing on tank. Good luck, you will have plenty of fun.
Lisa

Hi Michael,

One thing i was going to ask was, could i do it in stages? as in could i have the angel pair in one cube, and then after a few weeks of the fry ( do you call angel fish babies fry? or is it different?) being with them transfer them to the second cube? then to the grow out in the 3ft? or wouldn't that work?

You may find you struggle to keep up with parents.

Certainly start them off in one cube, if your lucky you might just be able to leave the parents with their babies until they are about 3 weeks free swimming, them move parents to the 2nd cube. You'll probably get a new batch within a couple of weeks, so about a month after that you'll neeed to move the babies from the first cube to the 3' grow on, and the parents back to the first cube. Your problems will come if you allow the parents to breed again as many of the babies in the 3ft will probably still be too small to sell.
A further complication will come if you decide you want to keep a few of your babies.

what retail shop do you own

Very kindly Lisa has put a link to my shop - The Aquatic Habitat, just under the visitor counter; although at present we don't send fish by post or courier, sorry.

Thanks everyone,

Been a while since ive been on this site, as i went through the stage of looking at marine again, but just to expensive still -_- lol, so i think finally im going to breed angels ,

Just a slight change to my original plan, now that ive finished my exams for the year, im going to try and do this. i have space for a 4ft aquarium, with space for another 4ft aquarium underneath, but can be made up in 18"cubes or 18" with a 30" etc. if you get what i mean :L

With the selling, im going to try and get something sorted with a local shop, and run an online shop selling them to order through postage, just to sell the fish once to a size, as i dont plan to keep them :L, just for fun to have the fry

then if i cant sell them, then they will come on here for free, for anyone wanting some, they can either collect, or we could sort something out about postage

Just trying to sort out the aquarium now. Im thinking of getting a rio 180, then converting the cabinet, so its got a 30" and a 18" or something, but not sure, any thoughts?

Thanks alot
Mike


PS: hows it going with the show idea?

anyone?

also, would i beable to grow fry out in this?
Could i remove the glass in the bottom one, and use it for grow out, and have 2 pairs, one in top right and one in top left, then move them down a step, then integrate them eventually in the 4 ft?

Thanks
Mike

Hi Michael,
The up-rights in the rio cabinet are structural, so I wouldn't remove them, you could remove the shelves & doors and put tanks in the cupboards.

dividing the rio itself would be OK, but you'd need to take care to ensure that the water from the filter still circulated to the far end of the tank.

Fry are very small so might get past any divider, and could wind up in the juwel filter, so if using it for fish that are less than about 5-6 weeks old, I'd remove the Juwel filter altogether are replace with air driven sponge filters.

I would recommend an absolute minimum of 40 gallons (180 litres) for growing 100-150 fish to saleable size, I'm not quite clear how many tanks you're planning on now, but the thing to remember is that it's better to produce a comparitively small number of quality fish, than a large number of stunted runts. This advice is much easier to give than to follow!

i think im aiming to have 1 pair, that will produce quality fry, and have maybe 1 4ft grow out tank, with 1 18" cube and a 24" aquarium. But just trying to think whether i could some how sell the angels at 4 months old, as they get to a good size, but will i beable to prevent them from breeding again, untill 1.5 months has passed?

Depending on the variety and the space given to them etc. 4 months is a reasonable timescale to get them to saleable size. But don't expect to sell them all in one go. Some will grow faster than others. The more you can split them up on the basis of size, and the more space you give them, the faster they will grow. Each time you sell some, you create more space for the remainder to grow that little bit larger!

Unfortunately you have to be ruthless, so if your parents try to breed, and you haven't got space to raise the young, pinch their eggs. If they produce 500 babies, and you only have room to grow 200 on, then you need to cull half the spawn, and then as the survivors grow, cull any deformed or runts as you see them.

Will pinching there eggs stop them from breeding again?, sounds a bit mean, but i guess if you grab them early, before does his bit, i guess they haven't started developing.

What would you say the minimum set up would be for trying to silvers, koi angel? i know thats difficult thing to say :L, but as in, would i get away with a setup of, 1 x 18" cube, 1 x 24" and a 4ft?

Thanks
Mike

would i get away with a setup of, 1 x 18" cube, 1 x 24" and a 4ft?

If you started with the pair in the cube, once the babies were about 2-3 weeks free swimming, move the parents to the 2', a couple of weeks later move the majority of the babies to the 4' and keep about 20-30 selected ones in the cube. Once you've sold most of the babies from the 4' you can let the parents breed again, this time in the 2' tank. Make sure you sell the remainder of the youngsters from the 4' by the time it's time to move the parents again. Once you need to move the parents, move the selected from the cube to the 4', move the parents from the 2' to the cube. Make sure you've sold all the selected fish from the 4' by the time you need to move the babies from the 2' to the 4'.

When breeding the parents and growing on the youngsters run the tanks at about 27-28 centigrade, when not breeding the parents keep them at about 25c - this won't stop them trying to breed, but it will slow them down!

Thanks alot,
My idea was to simply place them in the cube until they breed, move all the babies out into the 2', until they start to grow, them move them onto the 4', and get the pair to breed again :L, will have to draw a picture and work out what you mean,

thanks
Mike