Breeding Angelfish Part 9 – How to raise the fry?
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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. The positive side, your chances of getting the Angelfish fry past this stage is greatly increased. Generally speaking, more fry will survive when you artificially raise them.
As 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.
