Colin, thanks for your reply.* I have raised thousands of Angelfish fry over the past 40 years or so that I have bred fish and had no problem.* The eggs were laid in a 120 gallon aquarium dedicated to angelfish only.* I have 9 adult angels in the tank. The tank contains two breeding pairs.* They are fed a variety of foods four times per day, consisting of frozen artemia, frozen blood worms, freeze dried mosquito larvae, freeze dried tubiflex worms, cichlid pellets, and live daphia twice per week.* I don't think nutrition is the issue.* I do a weekly water exchange of 25 to 30 percent. Generally, when the parents are left to hatch the eggs, they eat them before hatching.* Over the years I have had more success taking the eggs than leaving them with the parents..* I put the eggs in a 20 gallon hatching tank that I generally fill from the 120 gal tank the eggs were laid in.* I then add the appropriate amount of methlyne blue to the 20 gallon tank and place an airstone near the eggs.* The tank also contains a sponge filter and an eheim heater set at 80 degrees F, the same temperature the 120 gallon aquarium water is set at.**
I have had eggs from both spawning pair the last couple of weeks, about 8 days apart.* I put the first spawn in a 20 gallon tank set up as noted in the previous paragraph.* The eggs hatched and seemed to do fine the first two or three days.* I then noticed they were not as active as they had been and within the next 48 hours all had died before the yolk sac was absorbed.* Two or three days after the spawn died the second pair laid eggs.* I took those eggs and put them in a different 20 gallon tank that I had just resealed and cleaned thoroughly with acetone and rubbing alcohol.* This time, instead of using water from the 120 gallon spawning tank, I used tap water to fill the tank, added water conditioner, brought the water up to 80 degrees F and took the eggs.* Again, the eggs hatched with the same result.* The wigglers seemed fine for two or three days but seem to be dying today.* I am not sure what the problem is.* I don't think it is ammonia or chloramine.* I suspect there is some kind of bacteria, virus, or protozoan in the water attacking the wigglers.* I have always been able to hatch eggs with methylene blue using the method noted in the first paragraph without problem.* One possible issue I can think of is the town I live in merged its water company with a big city company about two years ago.* It is possible that the city of Louisville is putting something in its water that is different.* However, other fish I keep have bred without issue.* I have had German Blue Rams breed and raised the fry to adulthood in the water.* I now have shell dwelling multis breeding in the water and have apistogamma borelli ready to spawn.* It is possible that the angelfish I have have weak genes.* I raised all the angels I have from fry.* In fact, the 9 angels in the tank were all that survived from the last spawn I raised.* Most of the wigglers from that spawn two years ago died after hatching.* That was the first time I encountered the problem. I then stopped spawning the angels an turned to other fish.. The issue could possibly be a genetic problem passed from parents to fry.
The first spawning pair laid eggs yesterday.* I took them and instead of placing them in an aquarium, put the eggs in a one gallon jar to hatch that was cleaned very well.* I filled the jar with tap water,* added water conditioner and methylene blue to the jar, an airstone, and floated it in a 20 gallon tank to keep the temp at 80 F.* I will see if this makes a difference.
Again, thanks for your reply.* I hope I can figure this out.* I might try purchasing six more angelfish from another breeder to see if the same thing happens.* An aquarist did a you tube video three years ago saying he had the same issue and solved it by adding an antiprotozan medication to the hatching tank.* However, I could not understand the name of the medication he said he used.