Paired Angelfish can't quite get the birds and bees right!

[JoSalt]

Hello!
We have a pair of Angels who paired together immediately - so much so we called him Shadow in the end as he followed her round all the time! They've been together about a year - he is almost 4 yrs old and she is probably 18 months old now. Dirty old man!

Over the last 6 months, we've seen a few times she's had eggs but the first time she didn't seem to know what she was doing and droppedthem all to the joy of the other tank mates, the second time she cleaned the heater (which is enclosed in a plastic casing, not an exposed glass one) frantically but the quicker she cleaned, the more she panicked she became and started dropping eggs willy nilly.. the harder she worked, the faster she dropped them and then he ate them all....

Then, yesterday, they started lip locking (first time, on and off for hours) and she started going mental at the heater again cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.... lip locking... dancing... cleaning... chasing tank mates away...we had such high hopes... but we've come home and she's deflated somewhat and couldn't give a hoot about the heater now or him!! She must have dropped them during the day.. no sign of them.

Since it's vertical (the heater), we were sceptical how she would manage to lay on there - but left them to it... since she's failed again is there anything we can put in the tank (and at what angle??) to help her out a bit for next time?

Thanks!
Jo

 

[bob mccoy]

well i have 2 pair in a 55 gallon . and others that i breed. if u want babys then i sugest you put them by there selfs because as the babys hatch they are fair game for other fish. i use a flat piece of white marbel slightly slanted for them to lay eggs on but u can use two clay pots big ends together stacked in the tank or i also have grey slate tile i use or you can buy slate pieces for them. it usualy take them a few times to get it right for the newbies. sometimes they will eaven eat the eggs after laying them so i pull mine out and hatch them my self any questions pm me

 

[absolutangel04]

Hmmm... I have not had an issue like that before, so this is just conjecture. You can try putting a piece of slate in the tank as close to vertical as possible. My angels like to lay eggs on the leaves of an Amazon sword too. Honestly, it sounds like to me like the problem is more her than anything else. Some angels are poor parents. This sounds like a case where if you really want offspring, you should consider a breeding tank for the pair so she isn't stressed out by other fish and can have time to lay her eggs in peace.
The fact that the heater is vertical doesn't matter. Mine have laid eggs on the filter intake before without an issue. If you can get her to lay of a piece of slate though, you can easily remove the slate into a separate tank so she doesn't eat the eggs. If she is freaking out like that though, it is unlikely that the male ever got the chance to fertilize them anyways.

 

[Andy Sager]

The above 2 answers are right on. There's nothing wrong with them using the heater except that I've experienced the eggs dying from the extra heat created by the heater. If I were to leave the pair where they are, I'd put some slate or other flat slab in front of the heater so they couldn't use it.

If you are truly interested in having the fry survive, you be better off putting the pair in a separate tank by themselves as suggested. There are breeding stands for sale or I've used any thin, flat slate or shale rock positioned about 45 degrees between the bottom and side walls. I've used these because they were easier to handle when removing the spawns and didn't take up as much room since I was using smaller tanks.

As for the age difference, it doesn't really matter. What is typical of a young or first time breeder is that they usually have poor spawns the first few times. But the behavior you are describing seems not from inexperience but from desperation which is not a good thing. Being alone should solve this problem. Otherwise, your other fish will be getting a nice high protein (high cholesterol ) snack about every couple of weeks or so.

If you'd like more help with this, feel free to PM me. Angelfish were my specialty

 

[biss444]

sometimes pairs of angels can get it right the first time, but more likely something usually goes wrong the first couple times, be patient, i used to feed my pairs treats of frozen blood worms, seemed like my batches of eggs got bigger , i agree about taking eggs out and put in other tank, but keep an airstone under them to keep them clean, but nothing compares to watching a mother and father caring for there young