angelfish - pregnant or something else???

[jparnell]

I've never had angelfish before last weekend. So bear with me.

I have a pair... I think.. they were certainly behaving as such when we picked them out. They're quite settled and happy in the tank. Checked in on them this morning, and one had a significant bulge just behind the side fins. Checked on them tonight, and the same one... the bulge is even bigger. It's even on both sides. Did a bit of research, and it's possible that we actually have a spawning pair, but I couldn't find any pics of pregnant angels.

Help? They don't seem to be exhibiting any abnormal or distressed behaviour, just a bulge. Ideas? Thanks

[Amazontankz]

I'm having some trouble with what you mean buy the word "Pregnant". Angelfish are not livebearers and so the female does not carry the fry in a womb<--this is what I precieve the word "pregnant" to mean.

How big are your angels? Are they of a mature size(silver dollar size)? How are they acting? If you do have a pair and they are atttempting to spawn, you will see the pair start to "strip" a flat surface such as a leaf or the side of the tank. This is their attempt to clean an area off to lay eggs on. Then if they do spawn, you will see the female tuck her fins up and slowing lay a line of eggs on the surface while the male follows behind spraying his sperm on the eggs.

However, the bulge you are discribing sounds nothing like anything that would have to do with the angel being "pregnant" or full of eggs. Is this bulge outside the scales, like a growth of some kind? or does it just look like she has a large stomach? What to you mean buy on both sides?

Oh, and just because the angels aren't fighting does not mean you have a match. 2 angels can live peacfulling without being a pair.

[Lobo.]

sry my bad... I guess i need to do more reasearch...

[jparnell]

I guess it's like a large stomach. Not sure of the anatomy of an angelfish, so not sure where everything is in relation to everything else. What I meant by both sides is when you look at it from the front, both of the sides are bulging the same amount. Know what I mean? It isn't like just one side is bulging and not the other. My first thought was really bad constipation. But things seem normal there too.

They've been cleaning the side of the tank, and one of the leaves. But not religiously. I'll keep a closer eye on them and see how they are in the morning.

[Candycat21]

Sounds to me like you do have a pair. I have a male and 3 females that have spawned a couple of times each, but the eggs haven't hatched....they're still trying to get the jist of it and i guess it doesn't help that the male goes from one female to the other.
Your female does sound like she is full of eggs. To tell the difference for sure between male and female is during spawning. A pink tube (papilla) will appear. The females papilla is more blunt and wide compared to that of the male who's papilla is more elongated and pointed.

[jparnell]

Thanks Candycat,
I don't suppose you have any pics of angels ready to lay eggs? Just want to make sure what I'm seeing isn't abnorml. :)

Thanks again!

[Candycat21]

Lol No problem. Glad to help :dance I'm still a little stupid when it comes to linking pictures onto here, but if you just go and do a google search for Angelfish breeding or something similar like that, you'll find tons of pics and information. I will post a pic as soon as I figure it out LoL :)

[jparnell]

I couldn't find any pics unfortunately. Oh well.

She's been like this for a couple of days... is that normal? I mean, at what point should I start to be worried?

[Dangerdoll]

when I had my angels which bred quite often, my female was never markably bulging. Perhaps she's just eating more than the male..... anyhoo, here's a good site on their breeding just in case http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/pterophyllum_scalare.php

[jparnell]

then maybe it is just constipation. lol. I wish fish could talk!
Now the hard part - how to feed the rest of the fish in the tank and not the angels - they're pigs!!! Will see if I can have them go a day without food. Cuz this just doesn't look normal.

[SomethingFishy]

My angels have spawned several times, and there is no noticable bulge beforehand. Now I do have one angel about 5 years old that developed a very obvious bulge similar to what you've described. When it first happened I thought the fish was sick, tried putting it in a hospital tank & treating it with various meds. I tried fasting it for a few days. I never did figure out what's wrong with it, but it's never showed any signs of distress. It still swims & eats normally & the bulge is still there after about 6 months. I have no idea what it is, but like I said the fish acts normal. :confused:

[jcmo]

I never seen swelling with a female angel before breeding, what you are describing sounds like swelling from a bacterial infection and I do believe that is almost always fatal. The few angels I had that had that sympton eventually stopped eating and never got better, took about 5 days. Very disappointing to see $100 breeder die but they all do eventually.

Here check this link out,

http://www.angelsplus.com/faq3.htm

[jparnell]

Yikes. Susceptible to some pretty nasty stuff.
Well, they're both eating, voraciously. So I'll cut back on feeding and see what happens. no clamped fins, no red marks, not really anything abnormal at all, just swollen / bloated / bulging take your pick on description. I have a tank I can use as a hospital tank, but I wouldn't know what to treat for, never mind which medication to use. Even though these aren't expensive angels, they are a pair my husband and I chose together, so I'd like to see them last a little longer than two weeks!

Thanks for all the help, I'll keep you posted if I find anything else out.

[jcmo]

If you really want to see them angels drop some eggs this is how I would do it:

1. Limit the tank to just your paired angels
2. Feed live food or if not available frozen blood worms
3. Set the tank to the proper temp (79-82 F) I used 80 F
4. PH, never bothered with it. Angels seem to acclimate to your PH
5. Create a smooth spawning site from white PVC pipe
2 1 1/4" T connectors
1 1 1/2" piece of striaght pipe (about 1' long, one end should have a joint connector)
Small tube of tank cement/silicone

What you do here is take the long piece's joint end and cement it into a T connector to make a permanent T shaped piece. Get a long strip of flat thin plastic or material that doesn't bend much just long enough to sit on the inner lip of the tank. Slide that through the large T piece you made and hang in the tank. So the T piece you made is hanging for the top of the water down into the tank. Save extra T connector for later.

6. Limit other spawning sites, like remove anything they might use as an egg site that you can't remove from tank later. Just mainly anything high, big, and smooth...sometimes they'll choose the glass of filter anyway. Bare tank is best but usually you can only have so many tanks and one should always be decorated well.

7. Add Tetra Blackwater Extract as directed on the label, turns your water a bownish color but this is what will trigger the angels to actually lay some eggs. DON'T USE CARBON, carbon will suck all the extract out of the water and you want it in there. If they don't start spawning in a week, you might want to change up the ammount of time your tank is lighted (like a seasonal light change).

8. Hopefully now that you limited the spawning sites and provided your own, feed your angels good food, and set the mood with the temp and water they will pick that T pipe for a spawning site.

9. When they do lay the eggs on the pipe, let them keep the pipe a whole 24 hours from when they start laying to make sure they are done. They don't usually turn on the eggs until they beent there a while, older pairs may even raises the eggs all the way but you get better results if you adopt them and raise yourself.

10. Remove the T pipe, slap on the the extra joint connector to make and H out of the T pipe. Put that in a seperate tank with the same water conditions (Blackwater extract is not needed there). Tank should be bare with just a heater, sponge filter, and an air stone near the pipe with the eggs. Reason for the new t-connector is that with it added and now looking like an "H" the whole setup with sit on the tank bottom freely without letting the eggs touch anything.

11. Just leave the eggs on the pipe with aeration and soon they will hatch, if you are really worried the eggs might get fungus add some malechite blue to the water. I never really needed this, the aeration is usually enough.

12. Eggs hatch, feed them 2 times a day with frozen baby brine shrimp, powdered baby food for egg layers, or hatch some brine shrimp yourself. Don't stress here, the powered baby food is usually enough for personal results...you really don't need 200 surviving babies do you? With personal breeding only the strong shoudl survive and those to tiny to eat larger food don't deserve to make it unless you really want to become a brine shrimp farmer.

13. Water changes daily in your baby tank, do 10% and make sure you get out what food they don't eat cuz they'll never eat it all.

14. Cull, when the babies get bigger you'll need to selectively remove fish choose carefully. Any abnormal fish should go.

15. Take the last 20-25 to the pet store saving yourself the best 2-3 for your display tank or future breeding with non-related fish. Store credit for good angels is prime money, when I had my angels breeding I hardly ever paid for any supplies and got some really good hardware for my trade ins.

[aeacuschow]

i have 4 angelfish and one will use its body to knock dirt of the leaf. why so?

[Dangerdoll]

this is a pretty old thread however, it is certainly packed with good info so good idea on posting to it with your question. s the fish actually using it's body on the surface of wherever the dirt is? If that is the case, it's not knocking off the dirt, it may be what we call "flashing". What the fish is doiung is sort of scratchiung an itch. Most times this is done when the fish has Ich or some other affliction/disease which makes their scales itchy.... have you tested the parameters of the water?

[aeacuschow]

only on 1 specific leaf