Why do the angelfish eat the eggs?

[ducatigirl]

As others pointed out, young immature/inexperienced parent mya eat young, especially when constantly disturbed by other fish/their keepers.

Should stop with time.

Are you certain Harry isnt Harriet? Looking at vent of enlarged Harry's pic (somewhat blur when enlarged), I question its gender.

Thats like (Miss) Spot.who used to be just Spot.

Well, harry and ecky were together for 4 months and constantly fought.

Harry got into the 5ft tank first (cos hes my fav personality), and he fought for territory. I added another 2 that were sisters i thought, cos she has teamed up with harry, but harrys female fought with the other female/sister, she teamed up with ecky but then ecky got removed to join spot and harry and female killed the sister.
If ecky is a male, so is harry. The female was watching eggs first day, harry yesterday. I'm pretty sure harrys is more a shape like a w than a tube.

There wont be any survivors in harrys tank though, too many tetras in there, plus 5 platys who eat anything.

Yes its there first breed, so I will leave them to work it out, maybe they are priming for breeding by eating the eggs as power food? Very nutritious.

 

[Cerianthus]

Although I may be wrong and hope I am wrong as I want to see you experience successful spawn soon, there are other signs which led me to believe two females in action (I wish I had both fish in front of me as i can sex them with pretty high accuracy, even before spawning).

Two females are known to lay eggs but infertile (of course) and I have experienced myself such breedng behaviors b/n two females in many many occassions..

Anyway. Good luck and leave them alone as much as possible. You will have another spawn in very near future. Just conditioned them well for larger and healthier clutches.

 

[ducatigirl]

Excellent info Ceri, thank you.
Are the fertile eggs yellow?
The picked off the white ones and left yellow.

 

[KarlTh]

There's another reason - breeders who remove the eggs and rear them artificially. This means that fish with reduced parental instincts still produce fry, so the characteristic is inherited. In the wild, angels who make poor parents don't have surviving offspring, so the parenting behaviour is selected for. IMO, since the parenting instinct is one of the interesting things about these fish, poor parents should not have their eggs artificially reared.

 

[ducatigirl]

...let nature take it's course... the main thing IMO is that they have found a compatible tank mate (since the shop told me the two same sexed koi were actually a breeding pair, LMAO), and they are happy enough to want to try and breed, the eggs are good food, so if babies are not meant to be now, or later, then its not for naught The best compliment you can get from your fish is profuse breeding,like my electrics, means they are happy right?
Thats the most important thing to me, babies are a bonus!

 

[ducatigirl]

Although I may be wrong and hope I am wrong as I want to see you experience successful spawn soon, there are other signs which led me to believe two females in action (I wish I had both fish in front of me as i can sex them with pretty high accuracy, even before spawning).

Two females are known to lay eggs but infertile (of course) and I have experienced myself such breedng behaviors b/n two females in many many occassions..

Anyway. Good luck and leave them alone as much as possible. You will have another spawn in very near future. Just conditioned them well for larger and healthier clutches.

Heres a close up of Harry/Harriette