Angels laying eggs on my filter!

[AngelLover]

A pair of my angels have been mating on my hob filter intake. In the rare occasion that the eggs don't get eaten by the parents or other fish, is there anything I can do to keep the fry from being sucked up by the filter? I was thinking maybe I could cover it with pantyhose?

In all reality the fry probably won't stand much of a chance since it's a community tank anyway, but If I could get one or two to survive i'd be happy...

I do have a grow out tank and a tank I could use for breeding....but more tanks = higher electric bills! And upkeep!

Any ideas of how to save these potential babies aside from removing the eggs and/or parents?

pic of the pair from a few months ago. They aren't much bigger now, I thought they were just youngsters themselves! Guess I was wrong

 

[Rivercats]

Angels reach maturity at 8 months of age. Just get a sponge cover for your filter intake, they work great.

 

[AngelLover]

I have seen them at my lfs, but they all seemed to small too cover my filter! I have a penguin 350. I'll have to rig something up, because now I'm thinking panty hose won't allow enough debri or water flow through

 

[Rivercats]

You should be able to rid something up. Maybe check and see if they have a light weight foam at the craft store that you could cut in half and tie or rubber band it on. You'll think of something I'm sure.

 

[AngelLover]

Thanks that's what I was thinking!

 

[mohican]

With my angels, they never have problems getting sucked up. I'm sure it has happened though. Once hatched, if they don't get eaten, parents will "eat" them, only to spit them back out in a safer area of tank; primarily keeping them free from detrius and what not. Raising angelfish babies can be exciting and stressful. Good luck.

 

[AngelLover]

With my angels, they never have problems getting sucked up. I'm sure it has happened though. Once hatched, if they don't get eaten, parents will "eat" them, only to spit them back out in a safer area of tank; primarily keeping them free from detrius and what not. Raising angelfish babies can be exciting and stressful. Good luck.

Thanks I hope they figure it out!

 

[thomasina]

Rivercats idea of a sponge is good. I just bought some and had to cut out a bit in the hole so that it would fit. It works great!! Good luck!!

 

[AngelLover]

Rivercats idea of a sponge is good. I just bought some and had to cut out a bit in the hole so that it would fit. It works great!! Good luck!!

Do you think it would be ok to use a non used kitchen sponge? I have some that say non treated but I don't know if I can trust it!

 

[Rivercats]

It's more a matter of is it too dense to let water flow through easily. You can try tho.

 

[thomasina]

I don't think that is a good idea. I just bought three sponges on amazon for 4 bucks. It is the only place I have found them. They only took a few days to get here.

 

[AngelLover]

I don't think that is a good idea. I just bought three sponges on amazon for 4 bucks. It is the only place I have found them. They only took a few days to get here.

I saw the ones on Amazon unfortunately I don't think they would fit on my filter. The intake is large, flat, and rectangular, and the only sponge covers I've seen are for straight skinny tubes. :-/

I'm thinking my best bet will be to get the biggest piece of sponge / filter media I can find and to wrap it around my intake.

I'm probably going to end up moving them into my 37 gallon eventually if they prove to be serious about trying to raise the fry... In which case I could easily use a sponge cover for that filter! In the mean time ill figure out a cheap solution

 

[bob mccoy]

what i did one time was to set up a 10 gallon tank with meth blue and a sponge filter and heater, then i carefully layed a fish net on top of the water and scraped the eggs into it with a razor blade. then i placed a air stone under the net so as to create a current around them. not a big current though just enough to move them around . i have also done this with pleco eggs. any more i can help let me no. good luck

 

[AngelLover]

Well my fish decided to throw me through a loop and layed their eggs on an ornament in the middle of the tank instead of my filter intake... So maybe now I won't even need the sponge cover!

 

[AngelLover]

I think this is papa


Momma! I think? Lol

 

[MartyMA]

First off, that is a pretty pair of angels! You must be doing something right since they are in the proper condition to reproduce. As you can see, angels prefer relatively flat and vertical surfaces on which to lay eggs. You might consider a couple of thin pieces of slate as decoration. They will most likely use that for future clutches and it is easy to remove to another tank if you find out that they are habitual egg eaters. Good luck!

 

[AngelLover]

First off, that is a pretty pair of angels! You must be doing something right since they are in the proper condition to reproduce. As you can see, angels prefer relatively flat and vertical surfaces on which to lay eggs. You might consider a couple of thin pieces of slate as decoration. They will most likely use that for future clutches and it is easy to remove to another tank if you find out that they are habitual egg eaters. Good luck!

Thank you! Very good advice! Do you know if they prefer completely vertical or slightly slanted surfaces?

If they keep eating them I would definitely like to try hatching the eggs myself but my only fear is that the tank they are in now has cichlid sand in it that's raised my ph a lot... so I don't know how the eggs would handle it if I moved them to a tank without that buffer substrate. Maybe I could put crushed coral in the filter to raise the ph. Hmmm

 

[MartyMA]

Thank you! Very good advice! Do you know if they prefer completely vertical or slightly slanted surfaces?

If they keep eating them I would definitely like to try hatching the eggs myself but my only fear is that the tank they are in now has cichlid sand in it that's raised my ph a lot... so I don't know how the eggs would handle it if I moved them to a tank without that buffer substrate. Maybe I could put crushed coral in the filter to raise the ph. Hmmm

Either upright or resting gently at a slight angle is fine. Avoid resting they anything against the glass. I am curious about why you are maintaining a high pH for a South American cichlid. While angels are fairly adaptable, they don't much like anything above the low 7's and preferably in the 6's. Just how high is your pH? If it is working, I would not change anything radically however. If you do go the crushed coral route, just a tiny bit. Personally, I would not try to raise the pH at all.

 

[AngelLover]

Either upright or resting gently at a slight angle is fine. Avoid resting they anything against the glass. I am curious about why you are maintaining a high pH for a South American cichlid. While angels are fairly adaptable, they don't much like anything above the low 7's and preferably in the 6's. Just how high is your pH? If it is working, I would not change anything radically however. If you do go the crushed coral route, just a tiny bit. Personally, I would not try to raise the pH at all.

Well before it was an angel tank (which I didn't think it would every become) it was a Malawi cichlid tank... Our ph from the tap is was very low, sometimes under 6.0, so we got the cichlid sand to accommodate the African cichlids.

Changing it over for the new tank seemed like a lot of work and $ so we kept the sand in and put 20lbs of ecocomplete for plants on top w/Pete moss in the filter.

I haven't tested it in a while but I think it's near the 7.5 + range. So now I'm afraid that even though my angels are thriving that I will shock the eggs if they go through such a drastic change!