LemonDiscus's Angels have spawned!

Hello! I got a proven pair of silver angels from LemonDiscus and they have spawned. I now have a cloud of babies, being looked after most diligently by their parents, whom have been named Frank and Agnes. I am about ready to remove the parents and raise the fry myself, since they no longer need the protection of their parents. We'll see how many survive. These are unusually attentive parents, as most angelfish go, from what I understand.

Here's a pic of the pair (Frank in the foreground, Agnes towards the rear):


Here is Frank with his babies (they are not all in the pic- there must be 50):

 

I do too, Guidoman - it is extremely interesting to watch them do their thing.

 

They DID spawn on a sword, and they ate their babies this time after they were good and solid free swimming, but I am not discouraged. Every day the numbers went down lower and lower. :cry: The pair were bickering quite a bit and I could tell they were ready to go again, however.

Now they spawned again, a bigger clutch, so since they are so great with the eggs and the wigglers, I'm going to pull the babies once they are free swimming, since Frank keeps them in a very tight wad at the surface, and will hopefully be easy to scoop up if I'm quick. I am glad to let them do the hard work, but once they are scooting around I'll try to take it over from there. I set up a 37g tall next to this tank and will use parent-tank water when I make the move, and grow out the fry in the 37. This has been a lot of fun, and the two of them are doing great.

I am glad I was able to take them off your hands! I think it is good to support reproduction of angels that are good parents, since so many are not, and maybe the babies will turn out to be good parents as well.

I'll keep you posted!

 

You are right - Frank is much more attentive, and he is the one with the cloud of babies around his head, spitting them into a tight group. Agnes is no slouch, but he seems to be "Mr. Mom" when it comes to the fry.

Now I am beginning to wonder if the babies starved instead of having been eaten, based on what you describe from previous spawns. The tank is heavily planted and does not have a lot of current but I did NOT use BBS and used the powdered "First Bites" stuff instead - this might not have gotten to them properly, though I tried.

Did you use BBS for them after hatching? I find hatching BBS to be a pain but will do so if that is the best way to stimulate feeding behavior. Even frozen daphnia seems too big for them, but I tried that with them when they got a little bigger. I have to admit I never actually witnessed any fry-eating going on (if they did appear to "eat" them, they'd spit them back out in a different location eventually).

The two of them are trying to keep track of wigglers as we speak, so it won't be long now before we give this another try!

I have a 37-gallon set up next to their tank, essentially bare, and I can move babies into that if necessary, along with a big PWC using parent-tank water. We'll see how it goes.

 

OK - I looked in the closet and dug out my old BBS hatching kit, and a couple of pouches of eggs. Hopefully they are still good, though it has been a couple of years. I figured the heavy plantings prevents the food from getting right to them, maybe, or they get lost in the leaves and don't come out to eat.

If I DO catch them, I will do it right after they are free swimming, because Frank keeps them right at the surface in a very tight group, and I can just net most of them out in one swoop with my fine net. After another day or so they spread around the tank and it would be just about impossible.

I think I will leave them in the tank this time and try live BBS and see how that works. I'll use the turkey baster and really aim the food at them this time, lol.

Thanks for the help!

 

Thanks for the tip. With that in mind and with their past history, I will leave the babies alone, and if necessary Frank & Agnes can move over to the 37 while this batch matures. The 37 is a very tall tank so it is appropriate for them, and I can transfer water from the 40g at the same time. I think I'd feel better about moving the adults than the babies, but I will try my best to keep the babies fed where they are and see how it goes. Frank & Agnes get a second chance!