Hi everyone. I have 4 angels fish and 2 of them are laying eggs right now. Thing is right after they lay there eggs the eat them. Is this normal? Why are they doing this? This is the second time I have seen this. Any pointers?
This has happened to me as well when I tried to do breeding in a community tank setting and with new breeders as well.
The new breeders just don't have the technique down so considering that new breeders take a few spawns to "get it right", I wouldn't be concerned as yet. If it continues after a couple more spawns, "new breeder syndrome" is probably not the problem.
In a community setting, it is possible that the fish believe their spawn is in danger from the other fish in the tank so their thought is to protect them by eating them. (Angelfish are pretty but nobody said they were smart
) The way to find out if this is the case is to isolate the breeding pair and see if they still eat the spawn. If they don't, there is a very good chance that this was the reason. (This situation occurs in rodents as well when they are disturbed so it's a mental thing.)
This brings up a third scenario which applies mostly to established breeders, Some fish are just egg eaters. If this is the case, you can try to exchange one of the pair with a proven successful breeder and see if that stops the eating or immediately after spawning occurs, remove the spawning site and hatch them out yourself.
A possible fourth scenario is that these are 2 females spawning and they know there is no hope for the eggs so they just eat them. (I mentioned this fourth because i don't believe this is the case. Eggs are being eaten too soon IMO)
So pick your choice and solution. Isolating a pair of fish solves many possible problems so I'd suggest you at least give this a try before calling the results a failure.
Hope this helps..
If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.
