First foods

Does anyone on this forum have personal success raising angels? Most of the reports on other sites are vague about initial feelings. Now that my coral beauties are regularly spawning, I want to make a go at raising them (my new years resolution!). I'm trying to decide what copepods and phyto to start culturing. I'm considering parvocalanus and t-iso or tetraselmis (please forgive any misspellings). Currently I only culture nanno and rotifers for my clowns & banggai's.

I've read lots of anecdotes, as well as reading through reports of other pelagic spawners (such as mandarins, anthias, tangs), and the RCT site doesn't offer much detail. Thanks for any input! Hopefully 2014 will prove to be interesting!

I think the vagueness is caused by the fact that many of the angel successes have been with wild caught zooplankton. Lucky people near the ocean! That's just my impression though as I haven't read much about the angels so I may have that all wrong. Anyone, please feel free to correct me.

That's my take on it too. Karen Brittain's blog speaks of feeding parvocalanus, but I'm not sure if she supplements with wild caught too. I'm trying to find out how to contact her directly to get more insight. One way or another, it will be fun experimenting! I just wish I had a larger fish room & more free time.

Ps - let me know when you are ready for banggai's- the male had another mouthful due around January 25th.

Grow some T-Isochrysis first. Then after you have a couple of gallons, and continue to culture it, get some parvocalanus crassirostris. They are easy to keep once you culture Iso for the culture's food.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Thanks Kathy. That's my plan. I need to reorganize my phyto growing station to make space!

and the RCT site doesn't offer much detail. Thanks for any input! Hopefully 2014 will prove to be interesting!

Evidently there is one guy who has gotten angelfish larvae to 20 days on cultivated foods, but I can't find out what foods he's cultivated.  For about ten years it has been pretty well accepted that angelfish will accept parvocalanus for their first week or so.  To the best of my knowledge, those that have been open with the public about their success say that wild caught plankton is used after day 11 or so.  When my tank is ready I'll join you in trying to find a cultured second food that keep angelfish alive.   But it is an uphill battle, many people have tried and failed.

There was a presentation at RAW (Regional Aquatic Workshop - public aquarium event) this year where someone was doing larval culture with angels, going pretty low tech and producing a decent amount.   I'll have to dig up the program guide, but IIRC it was one that is connected with Rising Tide.   All feeds used were cultivated.

Thanks for looking into this.  Anyone producing a decent amount has learned a secret that has eluded the rest of us.

There was no secret.  You'd be blown away by how low tech he's doing this.  Questions were asked such as tank volume, feed counts, etc.  Tank volume = large container of cheesy poofs from Costco.  Feed density, what ever was on hand.  

 
 
That is QUITE surprising.  So my two decades of studying larviculture and years spend building massive culture systems are better replaced by a guy with Costco containers.  Hooray for the low tech approach!  If his method is easily replicated, perhaps captive bred angelfish can become commonplace.  Then we can work on the other pelagic spawners.

OK found the program for RAW2014...
 
"Catching Lightning in a Jar: Preliminary Success of Breeding Pomacanthus sp. at The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium"
Aaron Jeski and Ramon Villaverde
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium - Columbus, OH
 
Sorry, it was a pretzel jar :lol:

SWEET. Edit - I should point out that some Pomacanthus have the shortest larval durations of any marine angelfish, so much so that we've even approved Pomacanthus semicirculatus as the first (and currently only) Class C Angelfish (and perhaps the only Class 3 Pelagic Spawner).  The rising tide team made Mandarins look tough by comparison...

I have had a brief discussion with Frank B. about what foods they used for their angel program. What I got from it was that they used parvo and moina. I don't know what they used to feed the cultures or if they had used any wild plankton or not. 
 
Hopefully I'll be able to join in the hunt for the secret for Centropyge. Not sure how it will go, but I might have the opportunity to research captive rearing for Centropyge with a professor at the University of MN at some point in my upcoming college career.

Ironic how this post seemed to get a spam bump right after the workshop announced that Ramon Villaverde would be speaking. Maybe he has some mystic powers!

The "angels" must have something to do with it! Lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken