Angels in a Community

In one of my larger tanks, I have seven angelfish who have reached puberty. They have paired off into three groups. It has been interesting to watch the two koi angels pair off, the two blue angels pair off, and the two Siamese/ light blue striped pair off.

The remainder is a koi angel who seems to move effortlessly between the groups. However, soon I may place Alfred (now known as Alfreda) into another tank to try and find a mate there.

The two koi angels who have paired off have decided to start a family. I know this because they are terrorizing everyone else in the tank. They want to have the entire 60 gallons to themselves without the fear of predators looking at their fry as a sushi bar.

I have had angels lay eggs in a tank filled with other fish but they usually do not survive, unless they have plenty of plants in which to hide. Because angels are very compressed (looking at them head-on, they don't measure half an inch even fully grown) they can get into some very tiny places - which means baby fish don't stand much of a chance.

Another option is to place these two koi angels into a tank by themselves, as I've done with Lindsay and Stevie. Koi angels are difficult to find and they are very beautiful, so I imagine their babies would be in demand.

Several Batches at Once!

Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick have discovered their passion in life is... passion!

Right now they have babies from three different clutches.

One set of larger fry are about three weeks old.

Another set is one week old.

And immediately after they began swimming, Lindsay and Stevie cleaned up the nursery and laid more eggs! They are still in the wiggler stage, hanging onto the leaf by their little heads until they are large enough to pop off.

I had wondered as they laid additional eggs if they would still be good parents to their older babies. And the answer, I am happy to say, is Yes!

At the present time, they have about two dozen fish swimming about and about three dozen wigglers.

Once the original four go to the pet shop, I will transfer the oldest babies to the new tank so they can grow and flourish.

Ready to Sell

So the first four angels of Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick are old enough and large enough to sell.

It has been exciting to watch them grow from eggs laid on an amazon plant... to wigglers trying to grow strong enough to pop off... to swimmers sticking by their parents for safety... And now to bodies larger than a dime.

Lindsay is a black marble and Stevie is a platinum angel, so I was anxious to see the various colors of their babies. These four are primarily white, although three our of four have golden highlights coming in on their crowns. Though their bodies are larger than a dime, their vertical fins are quite large - nearly two inches from top to bottom. This means they will most likely be 8 inches tall or larger when they are grown.

Below is a recent video. Within the next couple of weeks, they will go to a local pet shop for a lucky fish lover to own.



When the CIA and Angels Collide...

Vicki Boyd thinks she's left the CIA behind forever when she moves to a sleepy little town to care for angelfish. But when the CIA recruits her for one more mission, she finds her future and her past and about to collide.

Below is an excerpt of Vicki working in the fish building when she is accosted by someone working on "the other side" of her CIA mission:

In a flash, he was upon her, his muscled arms grabbing her and slamming her backward. The fish tank teetered, the water sloshing over the side, as the angelfish parents scattered in fright. The slate with hundreds of baby wigglers crashed to the floor of the tank as she tried to draw the man away from it. A step away, his arms reached out to either side of her like a set of bars imprisoning her, slamming her against the far wall.

His face was contorted, his lip curling downward.

“Take your hands off me,” Vicki said.

“What do you think you’re going to do if I don’t?” he snarled. “You’re no match for me.”

“I have no quarrel with you,” she said.

“Oh, yes, you do.”

“Then take your hands off me and we’ll talk about it. I’m sure we can work something out—”

“Oh, we can work something out, alright. You say what I tell you to say. And if you don’t, you’ll be MIA.” His lower lip was contorted. His breath smelled like stale onions and she turned her head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Stay out of the tunnel.”

“What tunnel?”

He pushed against her with his entire body, pinning her flat against the wall. “Stay out of the tunnel.” He venomously enunciated each word, spraying spittle on her as he spoke. He pushed against her again, and she realized he was silently threatening her with rape—or worse—if she didn’t comply.

She felt a chill creeping across her skin, leaving it tingling as though the circulation had been cut. His whole body felt like iron and he clearly intended on keeping her pinned to the wall until she complied with his demands. As he continued to exert pressure against her, her lungs began to feel weighted and she struggled to catch her breath. Even if she’d intended on agreeing to his demands, she was unable to speak.

He shoved against her once more, pushing the remaining air out of her lungs. She was suffocating, she thought with rising panic.

Then two tanned hands landed on both his shoulders, pulling him off her so abruptly that she nearly fell to her knees. As she gasped for air, she caught sight of him being pulled backward through the fish house, through the doorway and into the yard.

Her knees shaking, she rushed after Dylan as he slammed the man against the trunk of an ancient oak tree.

“This isn’t your fight,” the assailant said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

    Dylan slammed his fist into his abdomen, causing him to drop to his knees and double over with pain. “I’m makin’ it my fight.”

Dylan Maguire may have come to her rescue but Vicki soon learns that all is not what it seems to be at Laurel Maguire's rambling old home...

Vicki's Key is available from all fine book stores. It is also available online at amazon, at Barnes and Noble, and other retailers. You can order a copy now from www.pmterrell.com and avoid all shipping and handling charges.

The CIA Come Calling...

Vicki Boyd left her job as a CIA psychic spy (based on the United States' real psychic spy program) for a summer helping an elderly woman care for and breed freshwater angelfish. Below is an excerpt from Vicki's Key, in which Vicki leaves the fish tanks to find her old CIA boss standing on the front porch.

Vicki finished logging in the statistics for the last tank in the room. It was amazing, all that was involved, she thought. But she also felt weightless while she was working, as if nothing mattered except the present.

She stopped in front of a tank where the slate propped up against the glass drew her attention. There were more than two hundred blobs adhered to it, each the size of a fat pinhead. And they were all moving.

Dylan had called them “wigglers”: baby angels, their heads literally glued to the slate through an act of nature, their bodies wiggling as if their lives depended on popping free. The parents were busily inspecting each one with a dedicated diligence as if each little wiggler was the only one they had to care for.

Vicki glanced at the clock against the far wall. It was nearing lunch time, and she was dying of thirst. She made her way back through the room, glancing in each tank as she neared the door.

Stepping outside, she could almost feel the humidity rippling as she moved through the back yard toward the house, and by the time she reached the kitchen door, her shirt was patched with sweat. She opened the screen door and tried the knob, but it was locked. Puzzled, she made her way around the side of the house.

Benita was strolling along the sidewalk toward downtown, out of earshot.

She continued around the side of the house. She emerged from behind the overgrown thickets and stopped cold.

On the front porch were two people. A man rang the doorbell and was waiting patiently for someone to answer, while a woman was peering casually into the front window. The curtains were drawn shut, as they always were, and she pulled back after a split second and glanced around the front porch as they waited.

She knew the man. Knew him too well, she thought. And he should have been anywhere else but here.

Of course, Vicki finds she can't refuse the CIA when they need her for "one last mission" and she finds herself straddling two different worlds: one of tranquility with angelfish and the charming Irishman Dylan Maguire, and a dangerous world of spies and counterspies halfway around the world in the remote border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.


Vicki's Key is available at all fine book stores. It is also available online at amazon, at Barnes & Noble's online store, and through other retailers. You can get a copy now from www.pmterrell.com and get free shipping just in time for the holidays!

Learning About Angelfish

In Vicki's Key, Vicki Boyd must learn how to care for angelfish, something she has never accomplished before. Fortunately for her (and the reader!) she has handsome and charming Irishman Dylan Maguire to help her navigate the world of breeding freshwater angels.

Below is an excerpt from the book as Dylan shows her the fish house, a building in the back yard of Aunt Laurel's rambling old home:

Vicki didn’t know what she had expected, but she wasn’t prepared for what she saw.

The building was about the size of a small carriage house and located in the back yard, sheltered from the street by a hedge of giant wax myrtle. There were no windows, but the walls were painted a pale blue that brightened the interior. There were two rows of 20-gallon tanks on either side of the room, one above the other, stretching for nearly twenty feet. Each tank was sparse, containing only a piece of slate, some sprigs of floating plants, and two mature angelfish in each tank.

“Oh!” Vicki exclaimed, stopping in front of one of the tanks. “There are babies in this one!”

Dylan chuckled. “They’re called ‘fry’, and yes, that’s quite the idea. We should have fry in each of the tanks. It’s how we earn our money.”

“So this is it.”

He reached back and closed the door behind them. “Temperature control is very important.” He checked the thermometer hanging on the wall. “It should always be precisely eighty degrees. The tanks don’t have heat, you see—or fans—so we keep the air conditioner goin’ in the summer, but only to eighty degrees. No cooler. And it may feel like a bit of a steam room in here in the wintertime.”

They spent the next hour in the fish house, as Vicki’s head was filled with a myriad of facts ranging from water treatments to the various types of freshwater angelfish, to how they laid their eggs and how the parents cared diligently for their fry, to how they were raised to an age where they could be sold. She doubted she could ever remember all of it. But as she watched Dylan move easily through the room checking each tank, she had a feeling help was only a few steps away.

Vicki quickly falls in love with the dashing Dylan Maguire. But all is not what it seems to be at Aunt Laurel's home, and when the CIA arrive to recruit her for one last mission, she finds herself struggling between her past and her future.

Vicki's Key is available at all fine book stores. It is also available online at amazon, at Barnes & Noble's online store, and through other retailers. You can order it now from www.pmterrell.com and get free shipping to anywhere in the world, just in time for the holidays!

Trying to Survive

Now the babies are swimming freely. They will remain around plants or close to their parents. If any other fish are in the tank with them, they could be eaten. They are still helpless.

They will continue to grow in their torpedo shapes for about two weeks. At that time, they will begin to take on the shape of an angelfish. Only after the third week do they begin to take on the colors they will have as adults. Their colors will continue to deepen and become more brilliant as they age.

Here is a video of babies swimming around their parents, Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick. There are no other fish in this tank so they are free from predators. However, if one of the parents believe one is weak or deformed or sense something wrong with it, they will eat it. It will give the others a better chance of survival as the weak one is no longer trying to get to the same food.

At this stage, they are fed live brine shrimp three times a day.

Swimmers!

The wigglers continue to grow until they look like little white torpedoes. When they are strong enough - after a couple of days of wiggling - they will pop off.

First the parents will gather them back up in their mouths and spit them back out onto the vertical surface.

But eventually, they will no longer adhere and will begin to swim freely.

Here is a video of Papa Lindsay Buckingfish gathering up popped-off wigglers and attempting to put them back where he thinks they will be safe.

When they no longer adhere, they should begin eating live brine shrimp - just about the only thing that will fit into their miniscule mouths!

Little Wigglers!

Within two days, the eggs will begin to hatch. The babies are not much larger than a pinhead and can't survive - or even swim - at this stage.

So when they hatch, the parents pick them up in their mouths and spit them onto another vertical surface, one they have been cleaning while waiting for their eggs to hatch.

The angels adhere to this vertical surface by their heads. They wiggle and wiggle while they grow for another day or two.

At this stage, they are called "wigglers" and the parents become even more protective of them because they are completely helpless.

You might be tempted to think these are eggs that have grown. But if you look closely you'd be able to see them wiggling.

The video below illustrates this.

How an Angel Begins

This week, I'll give you a quick series about how angelfish are born and how they develop. It's pretty fascinating!

Freshwater angelfish are egg-bearing. They lay their eggs on a vertical surface, such as an amazon leaf (which is why I have amazon plants in each of my tanks) or a piece of slate laid against the glass, or even on the glass itself.

I've had several couples lay eggs on the filter intake. It seems to be a popular place!

They can lay eggs every two weeks or so. They lay anywhere from 300 to 500 at a time. I've come to learn that the reason so many are laid in such rapid intervals is very few survive.

The female lays the eggs and then the male follows behind and fertilizes them.

Tomorrow: what happens when they hatch.

Growing Angel Babies

Four of the angel babies are now one month old.

They began as eggs and when they hatched, they hung onto a leaf by their heads (where their parents spit them) until they grew large enough and strong enough to pop off and swim. When they began swimming, they were barely larger than a pinhead and they were shaped like torpedoes and transluscent.

As they grew, they formed the fins that angels are known for.

When angels are crowded, their vertical fins are stunted and they end up squat and football shaped. When they have plenty of space to grow, they form beautiful, high fins.

Now that they are one month old, I am weaning them from the live brine shrimp they've been feasting on and have begun feeding them finely ground fish food flakes. They are now beginning to get their colors. The colors will continue to form until they are several months old; as they grow older, the colors will be deeper and more vibrant.

Here is a fun video of the four baby shrimp in their own 20-gallon tank:



Third Batch of Baby Angels

There has been a third batch of baby angels from the same lusty pair of angels, Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick.

Here they are swimming on their first day of school (don't you just love puns?)

Since this video was taken, I removed Mama and Papa. They are now in a fresh 20 gallon tank with a new plant and the ability to make love again without so many youngun's in their way. I have moved the other baby angels from the batch that hatched a couple of weeks ago to the nursery. Everyone is getting along great.

Lindsay and Stevie are generally confused the first day or two when they are separated from their new offspring. But in the past I found that Lindsay came to look upon them as a food source after a few days.

I hope to have several very pretty angels to sell to the local pet shop, who has agreed to take them. I think it will be another month or perhaps two before they are large enough to be sold. They shouldn't be for sale if they are under the size of a nickle.

What You Need - Part 4 of 5

So far this week, we'll looked at the size of the tank, the filter and the water.

But what about the correct temperature for angelfish?

I have found my angelfish love water between 78 and 80 degrees. If you have warmer temperatures (82 and above) you will notice the angels breathing through their mouths as well as their gills. This is not good!

Water that is too warm will also cause aggression in angelfish.

When the water is just right, angelfish want to create new angelfish.

I use Aqueon heaters in my aquariums but there are several excellent brands on the market. An aquarium heater is fully immersible so you can install it upright or attach it horizontally to the glass with the included suction cups.

Place the heaters where you want them but don't plug them in for an hour; they need to be acclimated to the current water temperature to avoid cracking.

Always purchase a separate thermometer (usually only a couple of dollars) to make sure your water remains at the correct temperature.

Don't I need a light and hood?

What You Need - Part 3 of 5

Earlier this week, I listed two of the things you need to keep angelfish: a sizable aquarium and a good filter.

But what about the water?

Angels are very sensitive to water changes. Most pet stores maintain a Ph of 7.0. Angels prefer 7.0 or lower, as low as 6.2. If you add real wood to your tank, you can be dropping the Ph without even realizing it.

Do not add shells or any decorations that contain calcium or you will be raising the Ph above 7.0. This creates too much of a strain on angelfish.

A good filter will keep ammonia, nitrates and nitrites under control.

When you first set up your tank, you need to cycle the tank - which means the filter needs to run all the water through it several times so it is more efficient at handling ammonia and fish waste. You can add fish food to a tank without fish to give the filter something to process. Or you can buy a product through your pet store that helps to cycle the tank. Only when your tank has been up and running for a few weeks and the water is well cycled, should you add your fish.

You can also take some shortcuts: add gravel to the new tank from an existing tank; the good bacteria is already in it (unless you allowed it to dry out) or place some decorations from an existing tank into the new one. You can also use filter media from an existing filter in another tank to get the new one started.

Do not overuse chemicals! Agents like Prime will rid the water of ammonia and chlorine. But if you use too much, you can pull out all the nutrients in the water that angelfish need to survive. Tetras, guppies or bettas will survive too much chemical much faster than angelfish will. I use half the amount recommended to keep my angels healthy - and only treat the water you're adding, never the whole tank unless all of the water in the tank is brand new.

But what about the temperature? Tune in tomorrow!

What You Need - Part 1 of 5

Since starting this blog and posting photographs and video links of my angelfish, I've had several people ask me how difficult it is to successfully keep or breed angels. So over the course of this week, I'll give you a little bit of information. There are plenty of websites and books that go into a lot of detail but I'll try to keep things simple.

Freshwater angelfish can grow to 10 inches tall, as three of mine have already. If you have smaller fish like many tetras, you can get by with one fish per gallon of water. Guppies and neon tetras can thrive with two fish per gallon.

But an angelfish needs a minimum of five gallons. I try not to have more than one angelfish per ten gallons. In my 70-gallon tank when Lindsay and Stevie began to start a family (or sushi bar, if you were one of the other fish watching) 70 gallons was clearly not enough space for these two. They were very territorial. Which is why they now have their own 20-gallon honeymoon suite. (At right: a 60-gallon tank.)

So the first thing you need is an aquarium. The bigger, the better. Height is a big factor, as angels get taller than they are wide (or you are feeding them WAY too much.) I suggest at least a 60-gallon tank is you want to keep 6-8 angels.

Tomorrow... all about filters.

Blue Angels

This is a blue angelfish.

I purchased this angel along with 10 others several months ago from a breeder in Pennsylvania, who shipped the fish direct to my door.

This is a female who has already selected as her mate a rare Siamese angelfish who is white with fins that go from white to black tips.

When I received the two angels, their bodies were about the size of a quarter. They are now about 5 inches tall and may grow to twice that size.

They share a 60-gallon tank with five other angels, about a dozen corydoras and a plecostomus.

Pipsqueak Littlefish

This is Pipsqueak Littlefish, The Band Manager.

Most people associate angelfish with the silver variety with bold black stripes. This is a koi angelfish, named "koi" for its orange and white markings.

Pipsqueak is about 10 inches tall now. But when I purchased him, his body was the size of a dime. He only had one ventril fin (that long fin in the front of the body) instead of two because the other had broken off.

He was so ugly that he didn't fit in Fleetfish Mac so I made him their Band Manager.

He was constantly swimming around the tank worrying about whether the others would get to their gigs in time. Then he worried when Stevie Fishnick had an affair with Mick Fleetfish. Then with John McFish. And he worried as she flaunted her affairs in front of Lindsay Buckingfish.

Now Stevie and Lindsay have their own honeymoon suite tank. Pipsqueak has several younger angels to look after. And now he's the Big Fish in a Small Pond. And loving it.

Separating the Kids from the Parents

I have several dozen angelfish babies in a 20-gallon tank. It's the third batch one pair of angelfish have had in about a month. None of the babies survived in the first batch. Two survived in the second batch.

By the time the third batch hatched, I'd seen the video on YouTube (see last week's posts) which recommended the parents be separated from the babies at 14 days. It had only been one week but I suspected Papa Lindsay Buckingfish was eating his fry. After all, he was never hungry when I fed him dry flakes of food... And he was looking pretty fit and healthy.

So this morning, I set up a second 20-gallon tank. Lindsay and Stevie did not want to leave their fry but I managed to get them in my huge nets (Lindsay is 10 inches tall) and transferred them to a brand new tank. In this tank, I have new amazon plants, their favorite surface for laying eggs. So they can "have at it" as my character, Irishman Dylan Maguire, would say in Vicki's Key.

At right are some of my adult angels coming to see me when I venture close to their tank. This is a 70-gallon tank.

Meanwhile, the babies are on their own. They are being fed freshly hatched brine shrimp four times a day. With no predators in the tank now, I will be interested to see how many survive to adulthood!

They are clear now and have torpedo-shaped bodies. They are shown with river gravel, which is slightly larger than aquarium gravel. So you can see how very tiny they are. It will take several weeks before they begin to morph into their beautiful angelfish shape and get their distinctive markings.

My Clock is Ticking!

This female, a Band Groupee who recently joined the Fleetfish Mac tank, is fat with eggs. Every time John McFish comes around, she begins cleaning the filter and tries to catch his eye. For whatever reason, he's not been interested. And she is not showing any interest in any of the other males in the tank.

Once the eggs have been laid, once they've hatched and are swimming about... The work is just beginning. Here's the second half of yesterday's documentary about raising the fish to an age where they can be sold:





How Angelfish are Made

Some people are birdwatchers. I love fishwatching. I've heard it said that fish don't have personalities but never from someone who has actually watched them!

This is the best video I have ever seen on angelfish breeding. It also shows up and close and personal how to tell the difference between a male and female fish.



I tell the difference based on their behavior. Males are more aggressive and more likely to fight for dominance while females are more likely to hang out in the background. Females clean the surface where they wish to lay their eggs and try to entice the male to join them.