Anxious Parents Maybe?

[SueD]

Was surprised last Saturday am with a batch of angelfish eggs on one of the plants in the front of the tank - first spawn. Not really expecting any to survive, I kept watching on and off over the next few hours as the parents seemed to squabble over who was supposed to be fanning - they weren't doing very well. A few were white, but there were about 30 or so clear. The other tank mates are sterbai cories, 7 rummynose tetras, a couple of otos, and a pitbull pleco. The parents were keeping all of these others in line and away from this spawn. The tightly schooling tetras were temporarily scattered and the otos were all over the place for a while. But none of the eggs got eaten by anybody.

Over the next couple of days, most turned to fungus, but there were maybe 3-4 that started wriggling! Still not expecting any to really survive, as I've been watching them I've seen the parents sucking them up and then spitting them out some place else on another leave but still on the same plant. Today, the parents are laying low in the opposite back corner of the tank and seemed a little anxious as I came near. Usually, they are front and center for attention when anyone is looking in. There's nothing on the original plant where they spawned.

How long would wrigglers stay wrigglers? If there are any that survive, how long would it be before I might actually see something free swimming?

I have neither the space nor really the desire to actually raise a bunch of angels, so I won't be getting into the extra work of pulling eggs etc, in the future. But watching these angels go through this parenting behavior naturally has been pretty neat.

[Jaster]

How old are the angels? THis could just be lack of experience of the parents if this one one of their first spawnings. If their new to this it could take them a while and a few spawns to get the basics down.
The white ones are the unfertilized eggs and the clear ones are the fertilized ones. The fungus if the parents not doing a great job of keeping the eggs clean. Again that goes back to inexperience of the parents. They probably moved the eggs arounf because they were nervous for some reason. They will also eat their eggs for the same reason.

The eggs will hatch and start to wiggle in about 3-5 days depending on temps and water. They'll for about andother 3-5 days. Dont start feeding them until they're in the free swimmer stage.

I started with the same idea... just cool to watch and see what happens... well 6 tanks later... Been breeding for about 2 years now... lol Its addictive. I'm fighting with myself to keep my little operation little. I'm loosing... lol

[Lady Hobbs]

Sounds like you have some free swimmers now at the back of the tank where the parents are guarding them. My pair ate the eggs everytime for the two years they spawned which was fine with me, too, since I don't have 10 tanks laying around for babies. LOL They spawn about every two weeks so that's a lot of babies to deal with.

A friend of mine was breeding his angels and he had so many, he set up 55 gallon tanks outside just for all the babies.