Angel Fish Breeding

[billyh1201]

Thank you so much for your information on this subject!!! I recently
purchased two beautiful Blue Angels about two months ago. About a week
after getting them, they laid a large amount of eggs on my Amazon Sword
plant, but ate every last one of them within hours afterwards.... About 3
weeks later they laid more, but as I came home and looked at the tank, they
were eating the last few, meaning they had the eggs during the day and then
ate them hours later again! I was so pissed off....Now they just laid more
eggs, not as many as the first two batches, but they seem to be leaving
them alone, and that was about 5 hours ago now. I don't know what to
do....if I should leave them alone since its only the two Angels, a Corey
Cat, and a Butterfly Pleco, or if I should cut the leaf off and put it in
an empty 10 gallon tank I've had running for the passed week while waiting
for this to happen.....PLEASE help me out being that I love these fish and
the babies would look amazing as well.

Thank you and hope to hear from you sooner than later, sincerely Bill H.
PS: I'm attaching a video and/or pic of the Angels :) The male is the one
with the spot, and the female is big and pregnant since the pic was from
yesterday....

[SueD]

Your angels may or may not learn to parent raise their fry. Mine once tended to them until they went free swimming but after 3 days, they began to pick them off. If you're serious about breeding, it is probably better to remove the eggs and there are folks on here who can give you good advice about that. It will be some work to raise the fry successfully.

I'm not really wanting to breed seriously, but I thought I'd try once. I pulled a leaf of wrigglers several weeks ago and although I lost most of the fry, I now have 6 that are about 5 weeks old. Here are some pics of my babies and the parents.

http://www.photoshop.com/users/SEDon...da83d5bf8fa42f

http://www.photoshop.com/users/SEDon...ac290325cd4ae7

http://www.photoshop.com/users/SEDon...e742d4c949bb52

[Dave Waits]

You should PM Indian Woods Angels, a member here. He breeds Angelfish and can give you some good advice on the subject.

[madagascariensis]

if they are first time parents it is normal for them to make some "errors"
during the first couple of tries. you could raise the fry artificially or you could give the parents some time to figure out how to raise babies and not eat them. the cories and pleco are nocturnal and thus may pose a danger to eggs.

[Algenco]

common behavior for young pairs, they'll most likely settle down and raise a few.
They will also eat the eggs if they feel that other tak inhabitants are going to get them, but with some pairs potential threats make them better parents.

So basically you never know

The main question is how many do you want?
If left for the parents to raise you could get 40-50 fry, if you pull the eggs you could get 800+, are you prepared to care for that many?

[Indian Woods Angels]

If your fish were not parent raised they may not parent raise them selves.

If after three or so spawns you still do not have free swimming fry you may have to go into trying to artificially rear them.

To do this you need a nice piece of slate 3" wide X 10" long ish. Place it in the tank. The pair should claim it a a great place to spawn. Once they do, give them about 5 minutes after they are finished and go into pull the spawn mode.

The tank for a pulled spawn that I use is a 2.5 gallon tank. I use tap water at 80F from the tap and I add a capful of H2O2 into the water. I let it sit for 5 minutes and then place the spawn on the slate into this tank. I place an air tube into the tank with the tube under the slate near the eggs with a mild air flow.

The eggs hatch in three or four days depending upon temperature, they will exist as wigglers, an egg yolk with an embryo attached. It takes 4 or 5 days for the fry to go free swimming. Once free swimming they require newly hatched Baby Brine shrimp as feed. When you feed them do so carefully, overfeeding can kill them. They grow at various rates depending upon temperature. 80 to 84F works good. They need excellent water quality and a well cycled sponge filter which you place in after the hatch. You can do 50% water changes but never expose them to chlorine. Use your tank water from your main tank.

When you pull the spawn you may want to have a second matching slate to give to the pair. They sometimes get mad about this slate going missing.

Keep in mind that a spawn of angels may be up to 1500 fish. They grow quickly and need good space to grow. I keep mine in the 2.5 for about 10 days and then into a 10 gallon and after 20 days they go into a 30 gallon.

Of course there can be a lot more detail in doing this, this should get you started though.

[Algenco]

Unlees your prepared with 60-100g of aquarium space ( that's just for the first 6 weeks) and an outlet for them I wouldn't recomend pulling the eggs.

I had pairs that did great alone, others that did better with another fish in the tank.

Honestly even a few young that you'll get from parent raising will require a lot of space and frequent large water changes to grow properly

Most of my Angel production was from atificially raising the young, but when I didn't need eggs/fry I have numerous pairs that raised young.
None of my pairs were parent raised, I didn't allow them to choose partners either.
I placed the male I wanted in with the female I wanted and never had incompatability problems in 30 yrs of Angel breeding.

With the industry in the shape it is now I have all my breeding tanks in storage

[Indian Woods Angels]

I recommend obtaining the latest copy of Amazonas magazine. It is dedicated to the magnificent angelfish. It is formatted as a reference issue, the photography is outstanding.

Within it's context you will read information from the true Gods of angelfish keeping.