Angelfish breeding help

[neon1423]

Hey all, new to the forum so this might not be where i post this so forgive me.

I recently had my 2 angelfish (male cobalt blue, female gold marble) lay eggs in my 55 gallon. I was away and didnt notice the eggs till a day or so later. I did some reading online and found out the eggs had indeed hatched and were at the 'wiggle' phase.

I knew that the fry wouldnt survive in the 55 with fish like tiger barbs and other agressive fish so I decided to try and move the fry and parents to a seperate tank. using tupperwear and keeping the leaf the fry were on submerged I moved them to a 20 gallon along with the parents.

The next morning I noticed the parents had moved the fry to a different leaf. A few days later the fry became free swimming.

This is the part where I ran into problems. So far the parents had been great, not eating, being very protective and what not. I called around looking for brine shrimp eggs to hatch for food, but wasnt able to find any. I resorted to using a fry food. after 2 days of this, I was in Big Als and found out they do sell brine shrimp eggs despite what the staff on the phone said. I have never hatched brine shrimp before so made my own using 2l pop bottles. That seemed to work and the fry seemed to be eating just fine.

That was 2 days ago when I had more fry then I can count. Today however I dont see any fry and the parents dont seem to be trying to protect anything. I had been doing regular water changes daily.

I cant figure out why I lost the fry. Any ideas?

thanks

[robt18]

My guess would be hungry parents.... Although it's unusual at that stage. Usual they'll eat everyone right away if that's their plan.

[exv152]

I've found that adolescent parents tend to do this more than mature/experienced ones. You can always try again, but some adults are not fit to breed because of their aquired taste for caviar.

[Stussi613]

Did you find any bodies? I can't tell you how many times I had discus fry that were totally viable one day and then dead the next.  The parents might have eaten them, especially if they are young as others have mentioned, but sometimes they die for no apparent reason too.

[neon1423]

I'm leaning towards the parents eating them. The parents are definitly first time parents so I'm not to upset that I lost the fry. I just wanted to check with you all to see if something I did caused the fry to die. But the consensus seems to be the parents ate them which I agree with.

[Shawn84]

Pretty common when it come to young parent. I find that if u keep them in a community tank setting leaving the light on all the time will help save the fry. Also I find that if the parent are overly stress they will also eat their fry. Best to move them in there own tank and try again.


Shawn

[neon1423]

Thanks all. Knowing that they will breed again, at what point do people reccommend removing parents from the tank?

[Stussi613]

It's tough to say, some people have experienced the parents feeding the fry from their slime coat, but I think that's mostly with wild caught...but I've never bred them so I'd defer to somone like Shawn who has bred them allot. 

I would think as soon as the fry go free swimming, but I'd maybe wait and let the parents try a few times and see if they can figure out not to eat the babies...the longer the babies are with the parents the better.

[angelcraze]

Hi, first of all, I have to say, I am truly impressed with your angelfishes' instincts for first time parents.  Usually it takes a couple spawn to get there.  I have many breeding pairs of angelfish and have been breeding them for over 5 years.  I usually remove the wigglers with a turkey baster, just suck them right up, them acclimate them to their own grow out tank or keep them in a breeder net.  But that's because most of my pairs share a tank, or are in community tanks.

I had a 33g tank dedicated to a pair at a time.  This tank, I would not steal the wigglers.  The parents would protect the freeswimmers passionately, but then, if I didn't remove the fry at about a week's time, they would pretty much all be gone overnight.  Why?  The pair was ready to spawn again.  I assume the tank is just too small to accommodate all those angels, and they know it, so they kill off the threat to their next spawn.  

Angelfish, ime, spawn every 10 days, so if you notice your gold angel fattening up, I would expect another spawn very soon.  If you want fry, I would leave them on their own in their own tank, and remove at least some of the fry as soon as they are free-swimming, or just steal all the wigglers, and get high numbers of fry.

I have seen, recently actually, somebody elses' tank, it was a 46g bow with a pair of angels and about 75 quarter-sized fry packed everywhere.  I would guess the parents wouldn't spawn during this time, or allow the first spawn to eat the eggs.  But he said the juveniles would feed off the parent's slime coat, same as discus would, and was concerned about the parent's welfare.  I feel our tanks are just not big enough to accomplish this kind of thing, it was cool to see though.          

[neon1423]

So an update on this. Life got in the way and I ended up leaving for a new summer job in nova scotia for the summer just after the wrigglers became freeswimming, so we lost the batch. Since I have bought a 20h tank for them, got then a fancy slate as well as a sponge filter. They have since spawned 3 times. The first 2 times, all the eggs went white within 24 hours, which my reaserch suggests they weren't fertilized properly by the male. The advice I got from Big Al's was that something spooked the male during spawning. I admit I did sit and watch them spawn the first 2 times. Today they spawned while I was at work, so hopefully the male had a good day. Will update as things progress.