angel eggs

Removing the eggs to a bucket with an airstone is a good first step. Add some Methyle blue to the water. This will keep the eggs from being attacked by fungus. It should be available from a local fish store. They can instruct you on how much to use. It is also helpful to remove eggs that turn white (this means that they are dead and being attacked by fungus that will soon spread to viable eggs).

If the eggs hatch, then you will need to hatch some baby brine shrimp to feed them. It's not too dificult, and instructions can be found on many web sites, just "google" (Baby brine shrimp hatching). You will need another tank to raise the fry however. It can be a simple set up composed of a 10g tank, sponge filter, and a heater (about $40 dollars). No lighting, gravel, or decoration is required. The sponge for the filter can be placed in your aquarium so that it already has the good bacteria growing on it and you can set up the fry tank in 10 minutes whenever you need it. Even if it is too late for this batch, the angels will soon produce another. It may take a awhile for you to get the hang of it and set up all the equipment, but hang in there. The first batch of fry the you raise succesfully will be worth it.

Agreed, although as the parents get more experienced you could probably leave the babies with them as this leaves less work for you in regards to the eggs. but it seems like you are doing everything right, and take the advice already given. also instead of baby brine shrimp you could also crush up flake food very finely to feed to the babies if you cant find the shrimp locally.HTH.
-Mike

I would go with frozen alternatives over crushed flake. If you can get them to eat it, then flake would work fine, but most newly hatched cichlids will not accept it as a first food. Look for frozen bbs, and a frozen food called cyclop-ez as alternatives to hatching bbs yourself.

It is far more preferable to allow the angels to raise their own young, FYI.

It seems to be a never ending cycle that angels eat their eggs and their offspring are allowed to reproduce even though they weren't raised by their parents and then always eat their own eggs. I would allow the eggs to stay with the parents for the next few months (this may involve the parents eating the eggs repeatedly), to see if your angels raise their own young. IMO, once they raise their own, it is also more rewarding.

How old are your angels?

It is far more preferable to allow the angels to raise their own young, FYI.

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Did you mean FYI or IMO? I'm 99% behind letting cichlids raise thier own young, but with angels, and to a lesser extent rams, this could take years and might never happen in a community settup. I advocate removing the eggs in this situation since daisy is interested in trying her hand at breeding, and I would like to see her succeed in the near future (nothing like raising a few fry to get a young hobbiest hooked).

Puma brings up a good point. However, the fact is if the hobby had to rely on angels that were raised by the parents, then people would be paying two to three times as much for them. This would put them way beyond the price most amateur hobbiests would pay for them.

what is preferable about them raising their own young is that such behavior is a part of what angels are. if they are to inept to do so then something isn't right with them and as exciting as raising baby fish is, making special efforts to do so if they won't on their own isn't helping angelfish in our hobby.

what is preferable about them raising their own young is that such behavior is a part of what angels are. if they are to inept to do so then something isn't right with them

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I understand this, and agree 100%, but come on... We're talking about a fish species that is so inbred that a huge portion of the young shows mild to severe fin and spine defects. One new breeder raising some fry artificially is the least of our worries, and will have ZERO effect on the hobby as a whole. What it will do is give her a chance to practice the skills she will need to feed and grow-up future spawnings from any number of other cichlid species.

BTW At the risk of sounding too confrontational (not my objective). How sure are you that every angel you've ever purchased has been raised by the mother? I'm glad this topic was brought up, and its important that daisy is aware of this issue, but in this particular instance it's simply not necessary for her to worry about it.