How do I know....

[pondmom]

My Angel fish are mating?
I've seen some unusual chasing/behavior that I've never seen before.
Any clues on what I should look for?
Thanks

 

[Guest]

Any clues on what I should look for?

Are 2 fish "pairing up" and chasing the others away?
Sometimes the pair will lip-lock and wrestle.

Brighter colors, esp. metallic blue/green spots here and there (on fins on my fish). Extra big belly.
Biggest clue, look at their anal vent. Anything protruding? Female will have a fatter egg laying tube like organ, males is a skinnier organ. Cant remember names of organs, but you get the picture!

How many angels do you have again? I have three, they did not pick on the odd man out too much, but sometimes when forming a pair, the "winning" male will beat the other male(s) badly, even killing them. Mine just had a few fin tatters, so i left them all together. Be careful, you may need to separate somebody out.

Still no succesful hatching in my tank, someone keeps eating the eggs during the night time.

Also, any extra large water changes lately? I just learned this, Angels can be somewhat induced to spawn by a large water change, it simulates the rainy season in South America. Live foods help too.

 

[pondmom]

corvuscorax ,

Nice explanation there Thanks!!
I also have 3 Angels. I noticed on the 2 larger fish, their eyes are red, and there 's a black stripe all the way through the eye.
The smaller fish has just a black circle eye.
I love these fish. They are so friendly.
I would love to add more but am afraid the new fish would bring in disease.
I'd like to know more about this "live food"
I've only fed them flakes.
Any other tips you'd like to share

Thanks much

 

[TankGirl]

Mine have done very well on a variety of foods, like bloodworms (live, frozen and freeze-dried), live adult brine shrimp that many better LFS will sell you, as well as live earthworms (boy do they love those!) that come from the chemical-free garden. They also will eat feeder fish fry, but mine are about the size of a silver dollar (currency) and their mouths are still pretty small. I like Hikari pellet food. Mine have really grown remarkably on this varied diet; it almost seems like they are larger day by day. They will also enjoy frozen mysis shrimp, but the shrimp (live, freeze-dried or frozen) is not complete nutrition by itself.

Good luck and enjoy!

 

[pondmom]

Can I just dig earthworms and feed them to the angels?
My outdoor fish go NUTS over worms.
I also thought I read that only flakes(no pellets) to these kinds of fish. True/False

Mine seem to be growing now that they are in their new tank too.
They are also the size of silver dollars

I'm gonna have to try some new foods
Thanks kindly!!

 

[Brandon]

Pellets will not hurt them. My four eat pellets along with a variety of other foods. One thing I have noticed when Angels are fixing to breed is they will start to clean the surface with their mouth of the place they plan to lay the eggs. Sometimes on the underside of a broad leaf, sometimes on the filter intake. This is a good indicator they are fixing to lay. Once they start, Angelfish will lay eggs as often as every 9-11 days. If your lucky you'll get a pair that will not eat the eggs or the fry after they hatch and will protect them from the other fish in the tank. Good Luck!

 

[TankGirl]

Regarding earthworms, I think they are an excellent food, and the fish really enjoy them, much more than most any other food. I have large stones that border a garden and I get them from underneath these stones. Make sure that no pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals are used in the area where you harvest. I like to rinse the soil off them. For my angels I have to break the worm (eeeww!) into smaller bits for them since their mouths are still relatively small. The only problem I have had with pellets in general is that they are almost always too big, and the fish spit them out promptly. I have been using "micro" sized pellets by Hikari and they have really done well on them. These are about the size of grains of sand. The "mini" cichild pellets from Hikari are still too small, amazingly. I am sure mine would take flake, no problem.

 

[jackie]

going off the subject a bit, but onto earthworms, is it something all fish like, the bigger fish like pearl gouramis, or mollies, they seem to have reasonable size mouths, will they make a mess of the tank,would i need to chop up small , they love bloodworms etc.. any thoughts on this would be appreciated. i dont want to kill the worms if the fish wont eat them jackie

 

[TankGirl]

I have fed them to my dwarf gourami, my angels, and if the other smaller fish in with the angels could get to them, they would definitely eat them, because when I put them in there they try to get them too, but the angels muscle their way over and snag it all. Hope you are not squeamish but when I rinse the soil off of them I try to give them a little squeeze over the length of their bodies and remove as much internal soil as possible, as this does get into the tank, though I don't feed this enough to create a real problem. I think the fish really do well on this, and is a good part of the conditioning process to get them to spawn. I think for gouramis and mollies, who both have larger mouths than my angels do currently, you can probably take an "average" sized earthworm and just cut it in two, and you will be surprised how they find a way to eat it. Mine will actually snag a piece and take it to a far corner of the tank to eat it, like a dog will do with a juicy treat bone!