Angelfish Breeding

[#Crabs]

2 of my 4 angelfish just breed in my 38-gallon fish tank. The female is currently laying eggs on my magnet algae scrubber. I do not have another tank but I do have a net breeding basket. I have never breed angels before. I can either buy a tank divider but I am afraid the fry will squeeze through the sides. I think what I will do is once the eggs are laid and the male does his stuff I will put the magnet float in the breeding basket. The problem is I do not have any food appropriate for fry. I need some help with the plan and which food I need to get for when I go to the store tomorrow.

 

[Sprinkle]

Congrats!

 

[#Crabs]

Thanks

 

[TwoTankAmin]

First spawns are always a rush. But sooner or later reality also sets in.

Angel fry really need live food at the outset. After about 10 days you can start to mix non-live in with the live and then each day decrease the live and increase the non-live. I hatched baby brine for the live and then used frozen cyclops as the non-live. It worked well. My first few angel spawns were spacespaced two weeks apart and were each several 100 eggs. I learned really fast that I did not wish to breed angels. People who did suggested to me that I would need two 55 gallon grow tanks for each breeding pair of angels I might have. (Today the fish I have that spawn are some of the rare B&W plecos which only give me 12-20 eggs at a time. The angels are long gone.)

I pulled the eggs by cutting off the leaf and moving it to hatch them in a 2.5 gal tank. They did not stay there long however. I had an air stone, heater and initially added an anti-fungal. Iin the small tank and water changes were simple and a cycle did not matter. The reason I pulled eggs was the fish were in 45 gal. community tank and the first spawn was eaten before they hatched. Angels will often eat their own eggs before they let something else eat them. But they will also protect the eggs to the best of their ability.

 

[angelcraze]

Congrats on the spawn! Surprises are well funny......
To be honest, the breeder net didn't work for angels. My parent angel usually suck the babies out of the net, but you could try it. It would be helpful to get a gentle air stream with an airstone beside the float in the net to move the water around the eggs. Normally the parents would fan the eggs by flapping their fins and wiggling their bodies over the eggs to aerate them. Aerating prevents fungus. The air stream mimics the parental care. If your tank temp is around 80°f, the eggs would 'hatch' in a couple days and go free swimming at about the 5 or 6 mark. This is when they first look to hunt food. Their natural instinct is to go for moving prey, so live foods are the best.

But I've had some success with dry and frozen foods, so it's not to say you can't do this. When you go to the store, look for golden pearls. A freshly hatched brine shrimp is approx 400 microns. I haven't tried them yet, but they are supposed to be a good nutritional runner up. Also frozen baby brine shrimp was always good with the fry.

I hatched my first batch of angels in a pickle jar with an airstone! I didn't have any special food, just ground up adult food. If you are serious about raising angels, you'll probably set a more solid plan for a 'nursery tank' and a 'grow out tank'. Also how you will feed them. Baby brine shrimp eggs were too expensive for me as a casual beeeder