Breeding Angelfish

Hatching Angelfish Eggs

If you want the experience of watching the adult angelfish raise the fry you can leave the eggs with the adults. It may take many spawns before the pair will raise even a few fry without eating them. It appears that stress of any type can cause them to get nervous and eat the spawn. However, we find that good feeding/conditioning of the pair along with a proper aquarium set-up, usually helps to get our angelfish pairs to parent-raise. Sometimes the addition of reverse osmosis water will get them raising their own spawns. We also take care to feed our best foods at frequent intervals to condition our pairs, and we continue this right on through the hatching and rearing period.

Keep in mind that some angelfish pairs will not eat well, when guarding a spawn. Be careful not to overfeed them. It also helps to place them in an aquarium, which is away from traffic and sudden movement. Water quality must be maintained as usual. Water changes can be done in a manner that the angelfish are accustomed to. With patience, the pair will usually cooperate. However, as in most cases nothing in life is a certainty and you can be assured that some angelfish pairs will never raise their own fry. But don't let this bother you. You can very successfully hatch and raise the fry artificially.

To hatch the angelfish eggs artificially is fairly easy and can be accomplished in many different ways, but there are two key ingredients. One is aeration and the other is very clean water. Some breeders use fungicides. Others keep them in the dark. Some do both. Many put the angelfish eggs in a small tank or jar. Some put them into a large tank. There are many ways being used by different breeders. I will explain our method, which works very well for us.

After the eggs are laid, a one-gallon jar is prepared by cleaning it thoroughly (no soap!). It is then filled three quarters of the way up with 100% fresh tap water. This is done approximately 24 hours in advance of the expected spawn. Just before moving the slate, we add a fungicide. We usually use Methylene Blue and have had good success with it. Add enough drops to make the water a medium blue shade. To this you can add two drops of Acriflavin, per gallon or you can use the Acriflavin by itself at 4-5 drops per gallon. Then an airline with rigid tubing is placed at the bottom with a medium stream of bubbles coming out. The spawning slate is then removed from the aquarium and immediately placed in the jar so the eggs are facing the bottom of the jar. Position the airstone so the bubbles rise near the eggs.

The angelfish eggs will hatch in approximately 60 hours at 80° F. The fry will then be in a wiggler stage for about 5 more days after they hatch. Do not feed the angelfish fry until after this stage when they are free-swimming. At this point we would like to dispel some fallacies that are commonly heard among angelfish breeders. Many "experts" say to never allow the angelfish eggs to come in contact with the air. When transferring the eggs from spawning tank to hatching container you are supposed to keep them submersed. However, we do not submerse our angelfish eggs when transferring and do not experience more than a few percent death rate. All that's necessary is to move the spawning slate to an already prepared hatching jar, without stopping to admire them for too long. Keep the hatching jar at about 78°-82° F. If the room in which the hatching jar is located, is not heated to this temperature, you can put the jar(s) in an aquarium that has a heater in it. We've also seen a wooden box with a low wattage light mounted in it, work quite well. Many of the "experts" also say to keep the angelfish eggs dark, to cover them with a towel, or to use very heavy doses of Methylene Blue. We never make an effort to darken our angelfish hatching jars (which sit directly under bright lights) and you already know our hatch rate. Light may be a factor in less than ideal conditions, but if everything is kept clean, light will probably have little effect.

Sometimes, you'll hear that you should never let the air bubbles flow directly over the angelfish eggs, but to place it to the side. Well, you probably guessed it. We frequently place the airstone so that the bubbles flow right over the center of the spawn. The distribution of any dead eggs always appears to be random. We've never observed a greater concentration of dead eggs in the area where the bubbles pass over. And finally, we've heard many times that you should make every effort to keep the fry on the spawning slate until they are free-swimming. The ones that fall to the bottom are supposedly the ones that end up with deformities. I'm sure by now you've guessed that all our fry end up on the bottom. In fact, we put them there on purpose. As soon as they hatch we shake them off the spawning slate, so we can remove any infertile eggs stuck to the slate. We then take a few moments to remove any dead eggs from the bottom of the hatching jar with an eyedropper. We leave the airline bubbling from the bottom of the jar. Depending on your water, this may be all you have to do until the fry become free-swimming, at which point, you should transfer them to a rearing aquarium.

Occasionally, if a jar looks a little cloudy or has a larger than normal number of dead eggs, you will have to do a water change on it. We have found that if you have angelfish fry with bent or stubby ventral fins, that bacteria are attacking them in the hatching container, or within the first week after free-swimming in an aquarium. To remedy this you may need to add an antibiotic to subsequent hatches and/or do very large water changes (95%) each day on the hatching container. If you think that you've done everything correctly and you still can't get your angelfish eggs to hatch, or a very small percentage is hatching, then the following may apply. The angelfish pair may have a fertility problem (very rare). Switching one of the pair with another mate may help. Also, we commonly see young male angelfish that have not yet had the spawning instinct fully develop to the point where they properly follow a female up the spawning slate. Most of the time as they get older, they do a better job.

Another problem may occur if your water is too hard. In very hard water the egg can fail to "harden". The angelfish egg normally hardens as it takes up water through osmosis from the surrounding tank water. The harder the tank water the lower the osmotic pressure becomes, thus less water flows into the egg and if it does not properly harden, it dies. You can reduce hardness with an R.O. filter or de-ionization filter. If your pH is very high, you may experience fry that bloat and then die before free-swimming. If so, bacteria is probably your problem and you may have to resort to massive water changes. I know some angelfish breeders who must do 95% twice a day in order to combat the bacteria.

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