Angelfish Breeding Pair

[Wingman-Goose]

Hi,

Not posted for a while but looking for advice. I have a 6 foot tank which had six Angelfish in which turned out to be three breeding pairs which were all laying eggs and raising to free swimming stage. I planned to separate them but unfortunately before I had finished setting up new tanks I lost two of the Angelfish, one from two different pairs.

Strangely now the last pair seems to have merged with the odd two remaining and are no longer breeding, is there any reason for this? Could the odd one have split the pair up as one seems quite dominant?

Thanks in advance


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[gourami24]

I have one male and five females for him whenever I do a water change it seems to be that he try's to breed with 3-4 at a time in the tank. But he dose seem to be happy all the time. The best thing to do is to do a water change every week for a month or two if they don't pair then the best thing to do if you want a breeding pair is to buy one from the pet store that you buy your fish from and best of luck


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[Andy Sager]

Hi,

Not posted for a while but looking for advice. I have a 6 foot tank which had six Angelfish in which turned out to be three breeding pairs which were all laying eggs and raising to free swimming stage. I planned to separate them but unfortunately before I had finished setting up new tanks I lost two of the Angelfish, one from two different pairs.

Strangely now the last pair seems to have merged with the odd two remaining and are no longer breeding, is there any reason for this? Could the odd one have split the pair up as one seems quite dominant?

Thanks in advance


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The reason could be that whatever killed the 2 other fish is preventing the others from spawning again. A few questions to better help:
How old are the fish?
What are the water perameters now versus when they were spawning?
What genders were the fish you lost?
When you say the last pair has "merged" with the remaining 2 fish, what exactly do you mean? Are they all just co-mingeling or is there fighting going on amongst the fish?

Let's just start with these questions for now.

 

[Wingman-Goose]

Thanks for the replies.

The fish are about two years old and we're all bought at the same time. The water parameters are consistent for the whole time they have been in the tank, no ammonia or nitrite, the water changes remain regular and they would all start spawning within a few days of a water change. Although sometimes they would spawn near the top of the tank just before a water change so I would have to delay it until the eggs were moved or hatched.

I cannot be 100% sure of the sex of the dying fish but believe they were males as they were larger and a bit more dominant. The cause of death is also uncertain as they went very quickly and looked to have no real problem. I did believe it could be down to aggression over territory in the tank as it happened quite close to eggs being eaten and they did defend their areas a lot which is why I was trying to get tanks sorted to move a pair out.




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[Wingman-Goose]

There doesn't appear to be fighting but there clearly is one dominant fish that moves around the other three. I haven't seen him fighting with them but a couple of the others do stay clear of him. His old mate now goes to the other end of the tank and he now seems to pursue a different one which stays around him.


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[Andy Sager]

It's starting to sound like a "status" thing to me. For example: I have 1 female that has spawned with 4 different males. The problem is that she beat the crap out of 2 of them. The 2 she left alone were brothers and the same color. Why? Is it a color thing? Genetics? Who knows. It just seemed odd that this female would only beat up the fish that were similar in color to herself. So in your case, the female he WAS spawning with may have been because the others were taken and she was not his first choice. Now that his first choice is available, he's playing his option. If you leave the 4 fish together, you may find he spawns with all 3 at some point so unless there is real fighting going on, I'd leave them as is. Any introduction of a new male is not recommended. Do that in a different tank and just add the female in with the new fish.

Hope this helps

 

[Wingman-Goose]

Thanks for the help. Hopefully I will be able to sort something out with them


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