Hooray! Angel eggs on filter - now what?

[lazyNode]

I had a pleasant suprise this afternoon. After my water change, I lowered the temperature of the tank by 1 degree to 25 degrees. Winter is coming round the corner, so I thought the fish should have a winter too. I should also mention that I fixed the 2nd co2 bottle this morning so the bubbles are alot finer now and flow at a steady rate. This made the PH is about 6.2 ~ 6.4 now.(Ignore the horrible wool/carbon thing in the picture, I was experimenting with spare tubes)

Anyway, I was watching my tank via webcam and after an hour I realised that most of my fish were hanging around infront of the camera. Which wasn't too strange because it's their feeding corner. Except... usually when there's a crowd of fish in the feeding corner, the Angels will bust in and take charge of the corner.

The angels were no where to be seen. So I took the long walk downstairs to check out the situation, and ta-daah. Eggs on the filter intake tube.
Maybe the Angels really liked the parameter changes??? I vacuum the tank once a week anyway - so nothing out of the ordinary for them.

Great. After a night of reading on the forums. I checked the sex, one angel has a cylindar shaped breeding tube, and the other has a very distinct triangle shaped tube. I've decided to let the parents raise the fry. I've just ordered some brine shrimp off ebay. And I've put a glass seperator between the angels and the other fish. Added a powerhead + hose so water still flows to the other side to the filter intake.

I'm worried about the exposed filter intake. Should I cover this with something? Like some stockings and rubber band? Would that be bad for my external filter, like overheat/overwork the powerhead or something? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[Star_Rider]

I would cover the intake of the filter..Just in case.

it'll be about 3 days and the eggs will hatch..from there another 3-4 days when the wigglers turn to freeswimmers..if the egg sacs are gone you'll need to feed the fry.

bbs is a good choice for food..

keep an eye out..I have seen first hatches not hatch and I have seen huge amounts of fry .

take it one day at a time.

[aardvark1]

Is this there first spawn?

One of my pair also spawn on the filter intake-put intake in a new 10 gallon tank with a season sponge filter. Got 6 tuppence sized (was going to say nickle, but figured as an Aussie you might be a tab more familiar with Brit money!) babies left, going to my God-Daughter soon.

Anyway-they have spawned 4 times since then. Fry normally get eaten as soon as they are free-swimming; last batch were being "mouthed" back into the main group as they swam away, but had to leave for the weekend, so not sure if they other fish in the tank ate them or Mom & Dad just got tired of chasing the little buggers!

Fed my fry on BBS; they soon learned to gather at the exit from the in tank hatchery to grab the shrimp as they swam out!

Good Luck!

[lazyNode]

I just checked the tank and the eggs survived the night. And there are 3 or 4 bright white eggs - so looks like most of them are fertilized.
I'll re-attach the tube to the carbon thing at the back, incase they want to lay more eggs or move them.

One tetra made it to the Angel's side last night, but I looked this morning and was back on his community fish side. Guess he learnt his lesson from King angel.

OK. Time to hunt for old stockings.


Got 6 tuppence sized
Sorry, I haven't heard of the term tuppence...only tupperware.

[WeeNe858]

i say start up a new tank if you really want the fry to survive.. if not they will most likely eat the fry... but GL anyways!

[Star_Rider]

you can move them once they brcome wigglers or wait till they are free swimmers.

keep an eye on the eggs..the white eggs are non fertile and have fungus..it can spread quickly.

[aardvark1]

Mom & Dad Angels normally ate the white ones that developed with my spawns-guess they were to anxious to wait for the babies to come so they could eat them...

:eek:

[lazyNode]

I'll see how the free swimmers stage goes, I might put them into my quarantine tank thats already set up and ready to go. Depends if they will spawn again.

And yeah, the parents already ate the white eggs that I spotted this morning.
The mother angel is so hard working. I feel sorry for her, she looks so exhausted from fanning her babies all day. At least they are still eating.

I'm gonna go give them some blood worms now to keep their energy up.