Angel fish - disappearing fry - advice needed

[MattD2]

Hi! I have a beautiful pair of angelfish in a 29g tank,. They have spawned a few times and the babies make it to the free swimming stage and then begin to dwindle in numbers. Last time, after 3 days there were only a few left and none after that. I feed them vinegar eels. There are no fish in the tank other than the parents. It is heavily planted. I change about 5 gal. of water a week. Are the parents eating the babies or is it a water quality issue or both? I now have a batch of wrigglers that will be free swimming in a day or two. Should I siphon some or all of them out into a 10 gal. that I have?

Thanks so much!

MattD2

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Are you rinsing the eels well before feeding them?

Why not feed BBS? That is what I used. After about a week or so I would begin to mix in frozen cyclops and in the feeding frenzy they ate it as well. Each day I would increase the cyclops and decrease the BBS. In a week or so they were eating 100% cyclops.

If you do not see the parents eating the fry, would move some to another tank and see how they do.

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-s7VVt8S/0/083e130b/O/i-s7VVt8S.jpg

I gave up spawning angels. Too many fry. My first spawn was about 500 eggs.

And this was the early hatch:

 

[MattD2]

Thank you. Easier to keep a steady supply of eels. I have supplemented with BBS

 

[fishorama]

You really need to separate the fry from the parents. Angels are good hunters & when they lose interest in fry after ~2 weeks or feel threatened in any way they will eat them. Water quality matters too in the fry tank especially. Plan on very frequent water changes to remove uneaten food & poo, daily is best if you can, every other day if not. Several very small meals/day are best, healthy fry are often hungry but uneaten food will very quickly pollute their water.

 

[MattD2]

Thank you - one challenge is that changing lots of water is itself disruptive! The fry are challenging given a busy work schedule. Thanks your help.

 

[fishorama]

If you don't have 1 a slim gravel vacuum that can help as opposed to a wider 1. With a smallish tank, even an airline tubing can be less threatening...but way slower changing water. I understand the needs of work vs fish care, a difficult choice. But once angels start to breed you'll get more chances...like every few weeks. This is a learning time for you & your fish, you can't raise every fry, nor do you want to try.

 

[MattD2]

So far so good…

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I think there is now a clear reason for why you are losing fry. It looks to me as if food for them gets spread all over that tank and it is for sure hard for them to find. While all the plants are great for older fish and for water quality, they can be an impediment for the very tiny fry who really need to be fed multiple time/day. The one good thing is there should be infusoria available for them.

One reason I very early on decided I did not want to spawn angels was the advice I got from people who do and who sell the offspring. They told me I would need two 55 gal.. grow tanks for each breeding pair of angels. Considering that there are a certain percentage lost to culling, it could mean a third tank might be needed now and then.

Your fry are not stationary so I cannot do a grid type count. But it looks like 70 or more?