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
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
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.
We have previously gone over the problem of Angelfish eating their eggs while spawning, or shortly thereafter. We will now go over fertility. Next we will go over what happens once the eggs hatch, but before the fry are free swimming. Fertility is an issue with Angelfish and will vary drastically between different pairs. Some pairs will be totally infertile; other pairs will be infertile at first and then will become fertile. On pairs that are fertile, the percentage of fertile eggs will range from just a few to, best case scenario, about 90% fertility. The amount of fry produced can vary from just a few to a couple of thousand. There are three main causes of infertility in Angelfish. The first one is mechanical and is caused by the male not doing his job and fertilizing the eggs. The second and third are biological and are due to either the eggs or sperm being genetically or chemically infertile. When Angelfish lay eggs, the male should follow the female on a fertilizing run as soon as she does an egg laying run. Some males only make the run after every two or three egg laying runs. It is my experience that these males tend to have a lower fertility rate. Some males will not fertilize at all. These tend to be the males that also are most aggressive on eating the eggs. There is very little you can do to change these males. Some Angelfish are infertile due to water chemistry. To optimize fertility, water temps should be kept constant between 84 and 88 degrees. Ph should be kept constant at 6.5. Heavy filtration, if possible, is a big plus. I try and avoid doing water changes at this time. The hatch rate is the best when the water is
In the last article we went over how to get your Angelfish to spawn. In this article we will go over the actual spawning process. The spawning process is everyone’s favorite part. This is what hooked me on Tropical Fish as a young boy and I still, 45 years after my first spawn, find it fascinating.. The first sign that your Angelfish are getting ready to spawn will be their obsession with cleaning the slate or breeding cone you provided. It will always be on a surface that is mostly vertical and if you do not provide a surface that meets that condition on which you want them to use for spawning, they will spawn on other surfaces that are much more difficult such as the side of the tank or filter tubing. Once you see both of them cleaning the spawning site, spawning will usually follow within a day or two. You will also see them start doing the mating dance. They will swim towards each other at a slightly upward angle. Once they get next to each other, they will shimmer and then swim away from each other at a slightly lowered angle. The mating dance is not always performed. I have found that Wild Caught Angelfish almost always do it, but later generations of tank raised strains often do not. The most spectacular aspect of the spawning will be the colors of your Angelfish. Whatever their color, it will become MUCH more intense and vibrant during spawning. This will be the prettiest you will ever see your Angelfish. They will also become aggressive toward other fish, including other Angelfish, at this time. They will aggressively defend the breeding site from all intruders, including you. If you put your hand in near the spawning site when they are
We will now go over what to expect after the eggs have been laid. This is where the frustration starts. The first two issues that you will be confronted with are eating of the eggs and fry, especially by the male, and infertility. We will go over the eating of the eggs first. We will go over infertility in the next part of the series. One problem, and the one you must get past, with breeding Angelfish is the eating of the eggs, or fry once the eggs hatch out, by the parents. The good news is that only about 30% of the spawning Angelfish pairs will eat the eggs and another 20% will eat the fry as soon as they hatch out. This is a much lower percentage than with some other Cichlids such as Discus. While both parents will eat the eggs, the male does it more often. This is sometimes done as they spawn and there is very little you can do if this occurs while spawning. The female will make her egg-laying run and then the male, instead of following her with a fertilizing run, will follow her and eat the row of eggs. This behavior is most common in new pairs. Many new pairs will eat their eggs in the first couple of spawns and then eventually stop eating the eggs, so do not give up on them. If you get lucky and they do not eat their eggs when spawning, there is still a chance that they will eat them before they hatch. Fortunately, if you get this far, there is something you can do. You can, at this point, take the eggs out and artificially raise them or you can take a mesh screen (house soffit screen works very well) and fit it
Last article we went over Spawning Tank set up. This week we will go over how to get your Angelfish to spawn. The first thing you need to understand is that you are not in total control. If Angelfish do not want to pair off, there is nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is provide the right conditions so that it is more likely that they will pair off. If you have a sexed pair and they are the only Angelfish in the tank, it is likely with about a 80% chance that they will eventually pair off if left together for a long period of time. To hurry our potential young lovers along, we provide conditions that are conducive for romance. We put 12 newly mature Angelfish in a 55 gallon tank and let them acclimate to it for two weeks. We then start doing some sudden changes in the tank conditions to stimulate courtship. Some of the changes we make are • Change the water temperature to 72 degrees for a few days and then bring it up to 86 degrees over about 12 hours and then leave it at 86 degrees for the remainder of a week. • Let the tank get somewhat dirty, not doing the daily water changes for a few days and then doing a 80% water change. • Feed them heavily for a few days and then stop feeding them for four days, followed by feeding them live food for three days. • Do two 60% water changes four hours apart where the Ph goes from 6.5 to 7.0 at the first change and then from 7.0 to 7.5 at the second change. • Leave the tank dark for two full days and then turn the lights
Last week we went over how to get the Breeding Pairs. This week we will go over the tank that we move the pairs into for spawning. We keep our breeder pairs in 30 Gallon tanks. Some breeders use 20 gallon tanks. We think the larger tanks are more beneficial to the breeders as they will pretty much stay in that tank for the rest of their lives. We use both an outside filtration and a sponge filter in the breeder tanks. Having extremely clean water is very important. The angelfish will breed in tanks that are a little dirty, but the chance the eggs will develop fungus after spawning is increased dramatically if the water is slightly dirty. We recommend a base temperature of 84 degrees for breeding angelfish. It is very important that the water not be hard. Hard water will significantly increase the chances that eggs will be infertile or the fry will die when they start becoming free swimming. Hard water will also increase the chance of deformities in fry. We recommend a Ph of 6.5 and a TDS under 100. Lighting is important for spawning. We recommend that you set your lights on timers with 14 hours of light and 10 hours of dark. You should do two 40% water changes each week. We will go over how to get your breeding pairs of Angelfish to spawn in our next article.
As we went over in the last article, we do not sex out Angelfish to get our breeding pairs. Instead, we have found the best way is to put 12 slightly under breeding size Angelfish (body size without fins of around 1.5 to two inches) in a 55 gallon tank and let nature take its course. The only purpose of this tank is to obtain pairs and will not be the tank that is used once they have paired off. Make sure you many spawning cones spread out all over the tank. Many breeders use slate, but we use 2 inch PCV pipes at 10 inches long attached to a base of 2 inch to 4 inch converter PCV connection. We use these for two main reasons. One, the eggs will be much more easily seen on them than when they are on slate. Secondly, the PCV is much more easily cleaned between spawnings and will not hold bacteria in it like the slate. The tank should be kept at 86 degrees. The TDS should be under 100 and the Ph should be 6.5. The pairing tank should be kept immaculately clean with outside canister filtration and At least two sponge filters on the inside. You should do two 40% water changes each week. You then just need to be patient. You will find that over the next year you will likely get 3 5 Angelfish breeding pairs out of the tank. When they spawn they will become VERY territorial and will keep all other fish away from where they spawn. We then separate them into their 30 gallon spawning tank and remove the eggs for artificial rearing. We will go over artificial rearing of Angelfish in future articles in this series.
Sexing Angelfish is difficult at any size, but can be done with less difficulty and more accuracy than with some other Cichlids such as Discus. In Angelfish the male is often larger than the female, but this is not always the case as with some strains such as Silver and Black Angelfish I have many pairs in which both sexes are huge and exactly the same size. Also, if you do not know the history of the fish, it could end up being one of the fish is just more mature that another and you could have two males or two females at different ages and different sizes. You can sex mature breeding size Angelfish by looking at their breeding tubes which can be found under the belly of the Angelfish between the Pelvic Fins and the Anal Fin. In the males it is smaller, more pointed and slightly angled more forward. In the females the breeding tube is called Ovipositor (more generally known in both sexes as the Genital Papilla) and it is wider, larger, more blunt at the end and goes lightly backward. This takes some experience to sex accurately and is only useful in fully mature Angelfish. Some males will have a bulge or hump on the crown of the head whereas females will have a straighter forehead. This is a very inaccurate way to sex Angelfish and cannot be used reliably as there are many exceptions. Some males will have thicker lips than females. This is especially true in wild Angelfish and old strains such as silvers. The difference is very slight, is only present with mature breeder size Angelfish and cannot be used reliably. All of the sexing methods we have gone over only work well with mature Angelfish and it is not possible to
