Previously we went over how to artificially raise the fry. Now we will go over raising the fry naturally. Next we will go over growing out the baby Angelfish.

Naturally raising the fry requires very little work on your part. The parents do all of the work for you. Unfortunately, it is very common for the parents to eat the babies, so most breeders artificially raise the fry. There are advantages to naturally raising the fry over and above that it is much easier. Angelfish fry will eat some slime off the parent’s side for the first few days. Unlike Discus, they can survive without the slime and will immediately start eating other food. This slime is very high in protein and contains antibodies that help the babies fight off disease. Naturally raised fry will grow much faster at first and will have more resistance to disease throughout their lives.

There is also the enjoyment of watching your Angelfish raise the fry. They will stay mostly around the parents for the first month and the parents will zealously guard them. When a baby strays to far, the parents will mouth it back to the main school. This is done by both the males and females. There is nothing more rewarding than watching your large Angelfish parents and the fry swimming around the tank as a loose school. I find this fascinating and it has always been my favorite part or the hobby.

Things you should remember. These babies will be very small and weak, so you will need to turn off all filtration, except for a sponge filter. You can also take the sponge from a sponge filter and put it around the intake tube of an over the side filter. Canister filters are two powerful to put the sponge on their intake tube. The biggest mistake that you can make is to do a water change in this aquarium with water that is not EXACTLY the same temperature. Angelfish fry are extremely sensitive to temperature shock and will die if you do a water change with water that is more than a few degrees different in temperature. With that said, Angelfish fry are also very sensitive to ammonia burn, so you will need to do daily partial water changes.

Start adding a small amount of live baby brine shrimp to the tank within 24 hours of them becoming free swimming. Drip it directly over where the fry are located. Be careful how much you add as if most is uneaten, it can foul the water and lead to ammonia burn. After two weeks, slowly reduce the amount of baby brine shrimp you add and slowly start adding crumbled beef heart flake. After a month, they should be eating exclusively beef heart flake. By the end of one month, they will be about ½ inch. At this point they are much hardier and you are pretty much out of the woods. They will reach the size of a dime in about three months.

Artificially raising Angelfish is actually very easy and if you are looking to have the highest survival ratio it is definitely the way to go.

We raise the fry in 5 gallon tanks. Getting the water correct is very important. You should take water out of the spawning tank right before transferring the eggs and put it in the 5 gallon tank. The temperature of the tank they are coming from and the one it is going into has to be the same. A difference of even a couple of degrees will kill the eggs. Clean water is absolutely essential for hatching the fry as if the water is at all dirty, fungus will form on the eggs. That is one reason that keeping the spawning tank water extremely clean is so important. To assist in keeping fungus from forming, we do two additional things. We add Methylene Blue to the water. Add enough to turn the water a deep blue. We also run heavy aeration next to the eggs, creating a current, which helps to stop fungus from forming. When the tank is ready and all the above conditions are met, quickly take the eggs out of the spawning tank and place them into the rearing tank. They should not be out of the water more than 10 seconds. Just a heads up, the spawning Angelfish will be very unhappy about you taking their eggs out. They will attack your hand and while it really does not hurt, it can be quite startling. To reduce that, I usually tap on the opposite end of the tank to distract them then quickly reach in with my other hand to take the eggs out. Hopefully the eggs will be on a breeding cone or something else that is very easy to remove. If the tank they are coming from is a ways away from the tank they are going into, I use a 2 gallon bucket full of water from the spawning tank to move the eggs into before I move them to the rearing tank.

Once the fry become Free Swimming at around 6 days, you will need to feed them within 24 hours. You should set up a Brine Shrimp hatchery on the fifth day so you can feed them newly hatched brine shrimp within hours of them becoming free swimming. They will not eat much at first and you do not want to foul the water adding two much. As the size of the spawn will vary significantly, how much you feed them will be somethings you have to decide when they hatch out. Feed your new Angelfish baby Brine Shrimp for three weeks. After three weeks start cutting back on the baby brine shrimp and when you feed them add in some finely ground flake food. Between 3 weeks and 5 weeks, slowly decrease the Brine Shrimp and increase the flake food until after the fifth week, they are eating only flake food.

After 5 weeks, you will need to transfer them to a larger tank. When Angelfish are crowded in a tank, their growth gets stunted. They will grow VERY slowly to not at all if left in a small 5 gallon tank. The size of the tank they need to be moved into depends on the size of the spawn. Spawn size can be from just a few to a couple of thousand. I once had a spawn of 2400 from one silver pair. Black and Silver Angelfish usually have the largest spawns. Young pairs typically have relatively small spawns, but the size of the spawn will increase as they mature.

In our next issue, we will go over naturally raising the fry.

Previously we went over Angelfish fry prior to them becoming free swimming. Now we will go over your options as to how to raise the fry.

You now need to make a critical decision. Do you let the Angelfish raise their own fry naturally or do you artificially raise them. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. We will briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

The main advantage to letting the Angelfish raise their own fry is that it is MUCH less work. Other than keeping the water ultra clean via water changes, as you will not be able to run any filters except a sponge filter, there is not much to be done different to what you normally do. If possible, please take any other fish out of the tank. The huge disadvantage is that the parents will eat the fry a majority of the time. They will do it very quickly, you will not know they are eating them and there is really nothing you can do to prevent it.

There is one other advantage to naturally raising the fry that most people tend to forget. Angelfish fry will feed a little off the natural slime of their parents and in eating the slime they receive antibodies from their parents, thereby making them much more resistant to disease later in their life.

Conversely, the advantages and disadvantages to artificially raising the fry is just the opposite. There will be two to three weeks of caring for your fry several times a day.  Generally speaking, more fry will survive when you artificially raise them.

Angelfish are much easier to artificially raise that some other fish such as Discus, we recommend that you go with the artificial raising of them. In our next segment, we will go over artificially raising Angelfish.

Previously we went over Angelfish infertility. We will now go over the fry prior to them becoming free swimming. Next we will go over fry after they become free swimming.

This is the easiest part of spawning and is also one of the most fascinating.

After 48 hours the eggs will begin to hatch. Only the dark ones will hatch. They are dark because after about 36 hours, the eye starts to develop and will show through the egg sack. Most of the fry will stay attached to the surface where the eggs were laid via a small membrane on their head. A few will become detached and will fall to the bottom. At this point the fry will look like a small comma to the naked eye. Under magnification, they are quite ugly and will look like something straight out of a monster movie.

They will remain attached to the substrate for another four days. There is not much to do at this point. They will have an egg sack and will live off of it during this entire time. There are only two real concerns. The first is the parents eating them. If you are going to artificially raise the fry, you will want to take the parents out. If you are not going to artificially raise the fry, you should cover them with a screen. The second concern is fungus. Adding Methylene Blue to the water will mostly solve this. If you are going to artificially raise them, and have taken the parents out of the tank, you should add aeration about one inch from the fry to keep the water moving around them. They will start to become free swimming 4 days after hatching.