Did my angel fish just mate?

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JustinKScott

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Mar 14, 2011
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I took my three angel fish out of my 180 gallon tank because of personality conflicts. The two oldest who always hang out together started beating up "the third wheel"; so he came out and back in the main tank and is peaceful with the others.

The two oldest are now guarding a 3" section of aquarium wall covered with bubbles (which are stuck to the side of my hospital tank). Are these eggs??

I'll attach a photo; although blurry.
 

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Yes, those are eggs

Hi there, looks like you have a fresh spawn! :)

I just had two pairs of mine spawn and it can be a lot of fun to raise the fry.

So what you see are not bubbles, but they are eggs. If you want some pointers or advice as you go, please post water parameters and temperature. Do not do any water changes right away until we review your parameters. Most important are of course ammonia and nitrites, nitrates will only matter if they are too high. Most people will not want to disturb the eggs or fry until free-swimming unless absolutely necessary.

Keep an eye on the eggs and the parents. The parents should be "fanning" the eggs and if any turn white they may grow fungus on them. It also looks like they are on the side of the tank. If you have something else you know is inert, like a plain terracota pot you can put upside down or some other decoration you can put in the tank that will help them as they will tend to move their eggs at one point or another. Mine moved them to the bottom of the tank at some point as they had no other place to put them.

It may also be time to get some brine shrimp eggs preferably to hatch or at least some decap bbs. I got mine at the LFS.

Good luck and have fun!
 
Hi Justin, that's great your Angels have spawned, but please don't be disapointed if they suddenly vanish, if they are a young inexperienced pair Angels will sometimes eat their eggs, just forewarning you, but hopefully that won't happen. keep us posted on the eggs progress. Good Luck!!

Pete
 
True, that's why you have to keep watching the parents. If they just go ahead and eat the eggs then there would be little you could do this time around. The solution to that is to give them time and let them "get it" at their own pace. This could take up to 5-6 tries. People that still want to get babies with parents like that either wait or give them a slate that can be removed and raise the fry artificially. If you keep the temp ~80F then you will know if they eat the eggs or not, you should have wigglers in about 48 hrs.

Now, from my personal experience, I have a pair that I thought ate their eggs. What happened is that all the eggs disappeared when I actually was expecting wigglers. They had moved them, but didn't "stick" to the new surface and were lost to the gravel. I found this out when I moved them to a bare bottom, the same thing happened but this time I found them on the bottom of the bare bottom tank.
 
Well they picked an awful time to do it. I have a planted 180 gallon community where they usually live. I have a breeder tank with a filter that can keep the water params in check with a sponge filter to keep fry from getting sucked up.

But nope they decided to spawn in the hospital tank. (I thought the third wheel was getting fin rot, so I quarantined all of them... Obviously he was just bothering the other two and they nipped his fins.)

The hospital tank has a mechanical and chemical filter only, as I rely on water changes to keep ammonia/ites/ates in check.

The other component to the puzzle was I went on a business trip yesterday so they didn't get their water change. So I'm not sure what ammonia is until I get home tonight; but I'm sure it's not 0.

I guess I'm going to have to wait 48 hours w/o water change and then transfer the swimming fry (only) to the breeder tank. Angel parents cannot follow as the breeder already has gourami fry!!!
 
:)

That being the case it does sound like a good idea to transfer them. They won't be swimming though, they'll be wigglers. You can still move them though, I use a new airline to move mine when necessary, they go right through without any harm; just run enough water through the line after you got the last one to make sure and flush them out of the line. I've done it a few times already, as I'm using a jar to raise my angelfish fry and this method comes in very handy.
 
jimenezlee said:
:)

That being the case it does sound like a good idea to transfer them. They won't be swimming though, they'll be wigglers. You can still move them though, I use a new airline to move mine when necessary, they go right through without any harm; just run enough water through the line after you got the last one to make sure and flush them out of the line. I've done it a few times already, as I'm using a jar to raise my angelfish fry and this method comes in very handy.

Thanks!! Seems to have worked. Used a plunger turkey flavor injector. Will use a turkey baster next time.

Many many eggs seem to have become squigglers.
 
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