Make Mine a Double

Lost one of the festivum today. It was not eating and swimming in a crazy manner, much thinner than the other two, and had been acting oddly for a couple of days. I will go back and replace him, since I do not like even numbers, and I think three will work well in the 150.

The other issue is the angel fry. It has been almost exactly two weeks since they were free swimming, and I don't appear to have lost hardly any. At least not enough to be detectable. What on earth will I do with them? I assumed that in this nontraditional breeding setup, with plants and sandy substrate, canister filtration, etc. that I'd lose quite a few, and I was warned of this. I figured I'd wind up with maybe 20 fish if things went well.

I don't want to jinx myself (that could happen!) but the babies seem quite hale and hearty, and are all eating well and growing. There must be more than 100 babies. You can discern their coloration now quite easily, and they are beginning to get the lateral compression that will soon identify them as angels. They do not yet have the ventral fins.

I guess anything could happen at any time, and two weeks is not very long, so I should quite borrowing trouble, but when I look in the tank I wish I had a spare 55 gallon in addition to the 37 gallon waiting for them (once the festivum are done in quarantine). There is still plenty of time. I will have to look into the typical growth schedule of baby angels and see how long I have, if things go according to plan, before I need to spread the babies out between several tanks. I'm already doing a lot of PWCs in the 40 to keep things under control.

I will get another festivum, hopefully in the next day or two, and be sure all three are healthy and in good shape, and wait until I need that tank to grow out angels before moving them into the 150, so they are as large as possible before having to fend for themselves with the leopoldi.