hey dangerdoll (an angel question)...

Well, it depends how big your tank is, how big your angels are, do you have hiding spots (caves, etc...). You'll have to tell me that before I can help you anymore.

that might not be enough room if you have two pair up for the others to get out of the way... the foot print size of a regular twenty gallon is the minimum area for a pair and nothing else... it sounds like they are socially cramped in there... they are also just teenagers so to speak right now, they might be able to pair up but won't get much done for a little while longer...

chipstahoy:

There are a few things we need to look at:

1. Space: I think your tank is much too small to house 7 adult angels. When you identify a pair, I would move them to their own breeding tank of 20 gallons, minimum. When the angels are constantly focusing their attention on driving inturders away from the spawning site, they will never feel comfortable enough to spawn properly.

2. Water: It would help if you could tell us your water parameters: temperature, pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and hardness. Although angels can spawn in a fairly wide range of parameters once they have adapted to your local water conditions, but if your water conditions are way off, your angels may not spawn. I keep my angels in soft water, 82 degrees, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, in 6.8 pH.

3. Maintenance: How often and how much water do you change? When I am trying to bring my angels into spawning condition, I increase my water changes from 25% weekly to about 40% twice a week. I use aged water, but others recommend reverse osmosis.

4. Feeding: I usually feed only once or twice a day. But prior to spawning, I will increase feedings to 3 or 4 times a day to bring the angels to breeding condition. I like to use lots of live foods like blackworms a couple of times a day. I supplement the live feedings with a good variety of dried foods like TetraMin, and spirulina flakes. Some people have recommended the use of beef heart, but I'm not comfortable about cutting up all that meat to make my own angel food.

5. I like to provide some long vertical objects in the tank like a large plastic amazon swordplant, or some long pieces of slate leaning against the side of the glass. If you see a pair of angels pecking at these objects, they are almost certainly cleaning it and making it suitable to lay the eggs on it.

Prior to spawning, both the male and female are aggressive in keeping intruders from entering their site. Both will be feirly relentless in this duty, driving everyone back. I have seen a pair of angels send every fish cowering into the corner of the tank for fear of being attacked. A bonded pair tend to stay together during a breeding cycle, and tend to defend their spawning site together. I think this is why it's important to move the pair to their own tank so they can devote all their attention to spawning and not to attacking intruders.

When not breeding, males are usually more aggressive than females, but both sexes can have aggressive tendencies. They are cichlids afterall, and will have their own social structures and behaviour patterns.

What I am reading from your post sounds a lot like maturing angels establishing a social order. The strongest fish will establish its dominance in the hierarchy of 7 angels. Your hex tank probably doesn't afford a lot of room for your weaker angels to escape, which is actually quite stressful for them to be in the line of sight of aggressive fish all the time. To be honest, what you described doesn't sound like the behaviour of 2 angels pairing off, but I could be wrong on this point.

Some things you can do to help your angels spawn might include the use of peat moss or peat pellets. Throw some in a nylon mesh bag and place it in your filter. The water will become discoloured, stained to look like tea. My angels love that stuff and their colouration turns very intense and deep. You can also try Tetra Blackwater conditioner, which is basically a concentration of peated water. This stuff may help your angels spawn.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

Originally posted by chipstahoy
i know what you're saying, but i only have them in the 35 until at least i get one pair. then i'll move the pair to a different tank already setup. all i need is for a pair to be distinguishable, i don't need them to breed in the hex. but everyone' just fighting with everyone else, and this behavior is new, and i've been keeping these angels together for over a year now with the exact same living arrangements. i feel like i can't split them up now, cuz what if i split up the ones who were almost about to pair off? i can't tell who's friends and who's not cuz it seems like they're all enemies. do you see what i'm saying?

-chip

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chipstahoy:

Hey sorry about that, I was replying to your original post when you posted this, which would negate some of the stuff I said in my previous post.

You may be better off removing 2 or 3 of the angels and putting them in your spawning tank. This way, there will be less stress on all your angels, and as a result, there maybe a greater likelihood of you getting a pair. Once you get a pair, you can remove the angels from your spawning tank and place them back in your hex tank and put the pair in spawning tank. As it is right now, it doesn't sound like a pair is forming. By removing the weakest fish, you are giving the strongest fish the best potential mates from which to chose.

I would remove the 2 or 3 weakest fish from the hex and place them in your spawning tank. Often, potential mates like to test each other by locking jaws and engaging in a tug of war, so it would be ideal to have a pair of fish which seem evenly matched.

Do you think they would pair off when they are only that small? I'd let them grow a bit more and then move them. They are way too small to spawn...

Hey there Chip, sorry about getting to this so late, I was away for the weekend. Reading through this post, you've gotten some pretty accurate advice in the size of your tank and the amount of Angels you've got. Being that your angels are just a bit over the size of a half dollar, I think it's pretty safe to say that you aren't looking at your angels trying to pair up but they are looking to establish a pecking order and as cichlids, this can be very nasty. As stated earlier in this post, they are equivalent to teenagers, and we all know how rambunctious some teens can be . Also as earlier suggested, I would split your angels up, removing the weaker ones to the additional set-up you've got for your eventual pair, you'll still be able to monitor them in time to notice when your breeding pair emerges, it is at that time when you can do rearranging. The tank is just too small for all of them to be peaceful. When pairing off, you'll notice two of them sticking together constantly, cleaning off surfaces and not being too far from each other. When I had an established pair, they were inseparable (I'm back at square one myself waiting for some pairing). You'll also notice at this time that their sexual organs will become quite evident (if they are not yet, this is a sure sign that they are not looking for mates). The males organ is longer and thinner than the females, her's is more stubby and blunt, they are definitely easy to tell apart.

In my experience, it was always the males who were a bit more aggressive, breeding or not. The males were always the ones either protecting the brood or protecting his female. And while breeding and not when breeding, this pair will always be together, if apart, not for too long or too far.