Angelfish Fry Balling up!

[Tuydark]

hey guys, so today I got home and my 2 day old (freeswimming for 2 days) fry were all balled up in small groups, yesterday was not the case, everyone was swimming nicely and lively, the temperature was at 78.8 and usually is at 79/80 is it because of the temperature? cause its the onyl thing I can think about, i´ve bread them many times and never had this happen. I change 70percent of water everyday, so if anyone has any ideas please let me know!

 

[kurtjs]

I may be incorrect but im not sure changing 70percent water daily is really good. Maybe 15-20 percent weekly? You could be messing with what the fish need in that water

 

[Tuydark]

I may be incorrect but im not sure changing 70percent water daily is really good. Maybe 15-20 percent weekly? You could be messing with what the fish need in that water

thanks for the help man, but regarding fish fry, daily water changes are needed, because u need prestine water quality since theyre so fragile and you´re feeding every 2 hours, so water gets dirty quickly, like I said ive done it before many times and never had this happen, but thanks a lot )

 

[Byron]

Yes on the larger water changes. Many discus breeders change 90-95% of the tank volume two and even three times each day, and fry grow faster and healthier. When fish have been in tank water it slowly becomes full of undesirable stuff. There is nothing clean or safe with tank water.

As for the [problem, I've no idea. I take it the fry are removed from the parents now? A temperature difference of one or even two degrees is not going to cause problems.

 

[Tuydark]

Yes on the larger water changes. Many discus breeders change 90-95% of the tank volume two and even three times each day, and fry grow faster and healthier. When fish have been in tank water it slowly becomes full of undesirable stuff. There is nothing clean or safe with tank water.

As for the [problem, I've no idea. I take it the fry are removed from the parents now? A temperature difference of one or even two degrees is not going to cause problems.

yes I remove them from the tank as soon as they turn into wigglers, or as soon as mom moves them out of place, to minimize loss, it just seems really odd, could it be they´re sleeping position? I mean on previous litters they just they lay there spread out, never seen them all together in clumps

 

[Byron]

yes I remove them from the tank as soon as they turn into wigglers, or as soon as mom moves them out of place, to minimize loss, it just seems really odd, could it be they´re sleeping position? I mean on previous litters they just they lay there spread out, never seen them all together in clumps

A video might help members to suggest something. You can load the video to YouTube, then post the link here.

 

[Tuydark]

A video might help members to suggest something. You can load the video to YouTube, then post the link here.

I don't have the possibility to that right now, but I can try and say it another way, so here it is, they're in a tank by themselves at 80degrees, they're past the wiggler stage (trust me, I know) and they've suddenly clumped together as if they went back to that sticky wiggler stage, yesterday and the day before they were free swimming throughout the entire tank individually, the only things I can think of are the temp change or the fact that it's night time and I never noticed this behavior before, so someone with a couple more years of this than me could maybe tell me what's wromg or if it's normal behaviour, I have no causalities until now apart from 1 or 2 runts but that's normal

 

[Tuydark]

This morning they were all fine, swimming freely and independently, maybe it happens only during the night, I'll look for this behavior again tonight and post an update to see if it really is that.

 

[ghyti]

How many days since spawn? Sometimes the day before they go free swimming they will launch off the bottom and then drift back down. Could you have seen this as free swimming? As you said it could have just been the way they happened to sleep one night. After they free swim they tend to stay in a pretty tight swarm if they are healthy. Feeding every two hours is way too much food for them to handle. Feed them newly hatched baby brine shrimp twice a day and you will not need the 70% daily water change. Twice a day feeding with 30 - 50% WC works for me.

 

[Tuydark]

Like I said if you had read the thread, I know what I'm doing and I've done it multiple times as a business, I had just never seen this behaviour, food every 2 hours is totally fine and I never had any complaints, only when feeding twice a day... They're too small in too warm of an environment to only eat as much as the adults, everything's fine now and it must've been the sleep not me confused about the state of development of the fry, thank you for your time nonetheless

 

[Uberhoust]

@Tuydark you mentioned something in your posts that triggered something I remembered about my angel fry. When young mine would effectively go to sleep after the lights went off, they would go where they were they were most comfortable, not necessarily the lowest current area but an area with low current but perhaps higher oxygenated area, like in a back eddy from the foam filter. A few times I would have to enter the room where the fish were in the evening (lights off) and when this occurred, I would find them as a group in one or two locations close together and hardly moving. If I finished my task in the room and left relatively quickly, they would stay that way, but if I was in the room for more than 15 minutes they would start moving normally.

 

[Tuydark]

@Tuydark you mentioned something in your posts that triggered something I remembered about my angel fry. When young mine would effectively go to sleep after the lights went off, they would go where they were they were most comfortable, not necessarily the lowest current area but an area with low current but perhaps higher oxygenated area, like in a back eddy from the foam filter. A few times I would have to enter the room where the fish were in the evening (lights off) and when this occurred, I would find them as a group in one or two locations close together and hardly moving. If I finished my task in the room and left relatively quickly, they would stay that way, but if I was in the room for more than 15 minutes they would start moving normally.

Finally someone with good knowledge, thx a lot man, mine are again doing the same thing, but now I know it's normal, I just find it weird I never noticed it before

 

[Uberhoust]

Just to be clear I don't know if it is normal or not, just something I remember from some of my hatches that I did not leave with the parents.