Spawning Report: Pterophyllum Scalare (Koi Angelfish)

PVAS BAP SPAWNING REPORT

26 November 2020

SPECIES

Pterophyllum Scalare

Koi Angelfish

VIDEO JOURNAL (SEVEN VIDEOS)

20 October 2020 - New Breeding Challenge

22 October 2020 - Wigglers

25 October 2020 - Free Swimming

02 November 2020 - One Week Report

11 November 2020 - Divide & Conquer

22 November 2020 - Shaping Up

26 November 2020 - BAP Submission Day

REPRODUCTION

Method of Reproduction: Egg Layer

Number and Gender Distribution of Parents: Single Pair

Origin of Parents: Tank Raised (Purchased from LFS)

Approximate number of fry: ca. 200

Date of Birth: Eggs hatched (10/22/2020) Free-Swimming (10/25/2020)

Approx. Number of Fry at 30 Days: ca. 45-55

AQUARUM CONDITIONS

Spawning Tank Size: 20 gal. long

Spawning Tank Water Source: town / city water

Spawning Tank Water Changes: 25-35% 1x per week

Spawning Tank Filtration System: Two sponge filters

Specimen Container: 1/2 gal. Lee’s large specimen container

Specimen Container Water Source: Bottled (RO) water

Specimen Container Water Change: 16-32 oz. / day

Specimen Container Filtration: None, just air line. After few weeks, addition of java moss and hornwort provides some better holding placement for bio to build up somewhat

Specimen Container pH — ca 6.4 (due to use of RO bottled water)

Specimen Container GH — Very hard to get a reading on . . . very low

Specimen Container Temperature: 84-degrees Fahrenheit

Specimen Container Ammonia: 0 ppm

Specimen Container Nitrite: 50 ppm (no sustained biological filtration)

Specimen Container Nitrate: 40-80 ppm (very high)

Growout Tank #1: 5.5 gal.

Growout Tank #1 Water Source: town / city water

Growout Tank #1 Watch Change: 30% / week

Growout Tank #1 Filtration System: One small sponge filter, low air flow

Growout Tank #1 pH — ca 8.0

Growout Tank #1 GH — 6 drops (measurement may be incorrect)

Growout Tank #1 Temperature: ca. 78-degrees Fahrenheit

Growout Tank #1 Ammonia: 0.25 ppm

Growout Tank #1 Nitrite: 0 ppm

Growout Tank #1 Nitrate: 5 ppm

Growout Tank #2: 20 gal. long

Growout Tank #2 Water Source: town / city water

Growout Tank #2 Water Change: 30% / week

Growout Tank #2 Filtration System: Two sponge filters

DECOR & ENVIRONMENT

Spawning Tank Live Plants: Anacharis, Java moss, pothos (roots only)

Spawning Tank Caves or Similar Hiding Places: Several shells, and the piece of slate leaned up against side of tank for spawning

Spawning Tank Substrate: Mix of Black Diamond Blasting Sand (coarse) and Eco Complete

Spawning Tank Lighting Type and Timing: LED, 5,000 K, filtered through diffuser, ca. 13 hrs / day

Specimen Container Live Plants: after time, hornwort added and java moss

Specimen Container Caves or Similar Hiding Places: None

Specimen Container Substrate: None

Specimen Container Lighting Type and Timing: LED, 55 gal. Aquarium block design, sometimes filtered through diffuser, ca. 13 hrs / day

Growout Tank #1 Live Plants: Java Fern Windelov, Java moss, Ludwigia Repens

Growout Tank #1 Caves or Similar Hiding Places: spider wood

Growout Tank #1 Substrate: Eco Complete

Growout Tank #1 Lighting Type and Timing: LED, ?? K, filtered through diffuser, ca. 13 hrs / day

Growout Tank #2 Live Plants: Wisteria, Water Lettuce, Pothos (roots), Java Fern

Growout Tank #2 Caves or Similar Hiding Places: none

Growout Tank #2 Substrate: Mix of Black Diamond Blasting Sand (coarse) and Eco Complete with a small amount of crushed coral added for buffering

Growout Tank #2 Lighting Type and Timing: LED, 5,000 K, filtered through diffuser, ca. 13 hrs / day

FEEDING

Food Fed to Parents and How Often: 2x / day. To stimulate spawning, Parents fed on frozen tropical blend, live artemia, and quality dry foods - Xtreme, and Bug Bites. Otherwise, Parents fed on a wide variety of dry foods including Bug Bites flakes, Omega One Color enhancing flakes, and a few others on regular rotation.

Food Fed to Fry and How Often: 2x / day. vinegar eels, then live baby brine shrimp, New Spectrum Growth Fry Starter powder, Sera Micron powder, and powdered Arctic Copepod. By the end, finely ground up flake food (bug-bites flakes, in particular).

COMMENTS & ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

A while ago, we had bought a small group of Black Marble angelfish with the hopes of discovering a pair. Though a pair did form and laid eggs once, we were not successful in ever getting that pair to spawn again despite many experimental efforts. After a long while of nothing happening, we moved them on to our LFS. Another customer came in, bought them, and a day or two later phoned the store to ask what to do with all of the eggs that had been laid in her aquarium. So it is with Angelfish! They are finicky, but if induced by a new environment, they can be prolific spawners.

Fast-forward to just a bit over a month ago. We bought a proven pair of Koi Angelfish from a different LFS. They had spawned multiple times in the aquarium at that LFS.

We brought them home, fed them well on quality foods, changed about 10-15% water every day or two, and within no time they began pecking on the slate we had propped up in the tank. They laid a large batch of eggs, we pulled the slate, and as is often said “the rest is history.”

Our original batch of fry was enormous - easily 200-300 free-swimming. But by the end, we only managed to successfully keep 45-55 fry alive to the 30 day mark. A natural context, with parents raising the fry, is always preferable to artificially pulling of eggs.

One essential challenge is setting up the fry in a stable environment with some degree of biological filtration. One method to try is pulling a small sponge filter that has a colony of bacteria to process through the nitrogen cycle, and putting it in with the fry — even without airline — just to add bio-processing to the specimen container. (Note: the small corner “bacto-surge” sponge filters fit inside the corner of a Lee’s Large Specimen Container)

There are other possible ways to get better yields. We opted to use bottled water (RO) for exchanging 16-32 oz. of the 1/2 gallon specimen container each day. The downside of this is that the specimen container never maintains a really stable chemical environment.

Angelfish seem to end up with a rather defined case of “runner” fry that out-eat and out-compete other fry for everything. These larger fry will unreservedly tear into weak and dying siblings.

There is some challenge guessing what color patterns angelfish fry will mature into based on how they appear as fry. It would appear that virtually none of these fry look quite like their parents.