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Welcome to my angelfish web site!
Member of The Angelfish Society
SEE PHOTOS OF MY PRIZE-WINNING FISH ON THE GALLERY PAGE!!!!! FIRST PLACE, CLASS CHAMPION, AND GRAND CHAMPION AT THE TANANA VALLEY STATE FAIR!!! ABOUT ME AND MY ANGELS Hi! My name is Tamar Stephens, and I live in Fairbanks, Alaska. Raising angelfish is a growing passion for me. I find angels to be one the most graceful and beautiful of freshwater tropical fish. My goal is to share my love of angelfish with others by providing high quality, healthy, locally-bred angelfish at reasonable prices, and sharing my knowledge and enthusiasm freely. Please check out the various pages at this site for information about angelfish. HOW I GOT STARTED How did I get started? In 1996, a co-worker brought in a pair of angels in a 20-gallon aquarium. These angels laid eggs faithfully every two weeks, but always ate the eggs. My friend decided to try to raise some of the eggs separately from the parents, and successfully hatched and raised 17 babies from one spawn. We all got excited, watching them develop, and I was thrilled to be given two of these special little guys. I started my two babies, about dime-size, in a 3-gallon tank on my desk at work, and within a couple of weeks, took them home to put in a 10-gallon community tank that I had recently started up. These were the first aquariums I ever had in my life. These two little ones grew rapidly, and I soon moved them into their permanent home in a 38-gallon tank. When they matured, lo and behold, they were a male-female pair, and began laying eggs. I never raised any of their eggs, but, I was hooked on angels! My first breeding pair was a female marbled veil tail and a male marbled standard tail. My husband bought the female as a gift for me from a pet store, and she grew rapidly and vigorously into a gorgeous young lady. The male was a big sturdy guy of unknown age and origin that was acquired from someone who was moving. The male died in November, 2001, and he is sorely missed. The male in my next breeding pair of marbles was the son of my original fish, and was a particularly gorgeous, large, and spectacular marble veil tail. His mate was also one I raised. She was a very attractive veil tail, average in size, with a good body shape, and perfect fins. They were both from the very first spawn I raised. RAISING MY FIRST BABY FISH When my first breeding pair started spawning, I decided to see if I could raise a batch of babies. I tried leaving the eggs in the tank with the parents, but after a couple hours of acting like parents, they ate the eggs. I tried removing the eggs, and my first couple of attempts at hatching the eggs were a dismal failure as mold got the best of them. Once I figured out how to protect the eggs from mold, keep them at a stable temperature, and keep them gently but adequately aerated, I hatched and raised about 70 babies from my first successful attempt. This first batch was spawned on October 10, 1999. My next attempt yielded about 150 babies, and the next attempt after that yielded probably about 350 to 400 babies. NOW: FISH AND MORE FISH! Now, my house is filled up with aquariums, and I am gradually adding other varieties of angelfish. I got three very nice leopards in a lucky find in a pet store, and they grew to be quite beautiful. Alas, they never were good breeders. I found one hybrid black angelfish in another lucky find in among a batch of what were being sold as black lace. He turned out to be a great fish with a wonderful personality. A few years back I bought some exquisitely beautiful kois from Bob Earls from Pennsylvania. My marbles have always been vigorous and easy to raise. I found the kois to me much more delicate to raise. Both the marbles and kois have good dispositions, so one of my long-term breeding projects is to raise a new line of kois from crosses between kois and marbles. My goal is to develop a line that has good koi color and has more of the hardiness of my marbles. Since I live in a somewhat isolated area, I can only raise a spawn every 3 to 5 months - unless I want to keep adding aquariums and house thousands of fish. So my breeding programs are slow to implement, but I now have raised a wide variety of types, including marbles, gold marbles, gold, kois, sunsets, and various blacks (hybrid black, double dark black, hybrid black ghost, and black blusher). THE ANGELFISH SOCIETY I am a member of The Angelfish Society (TAS). In fact, I somehow ended up elected as president of TAS to serve a two-year term (January 1995 - December 1996), which has given me even greater opportunity to work with many other angelfish lovers throughout the country, as well as other parts of the world. You can find lots of good information on the TAS web site, and on the web sites of other members that you can link to from The Angelfish Society web site. Click on the TAS logo on the top of this page to access the web site or click on this link: http://www.theangelfishsociety.org. Some of my favorite information on this web site is the information about genetics. I also really enjoy the monthly photo contests. For a modest annual membership fee (currently only $5.00) you also can download the genetics calculator which can be used to calculate the results of crossing different varieties of angelfish. If you enjoy raising angelfish and/or get interested in breeding angelfish, I recommend that you spend time at the TAS website and consider joining. I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU... If you have suggestions on other information you would like to see on this web site, I would love to hear from you. If you have questions, or interesting stories about your angelfish, or a picture you want to share, send me an e-mail.
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