Friday 10 April, 2009, 5:04 PM
Angelfish Spawning 10 April 2009
We changed about five gallons of water in our aquarium today and trimmed some of the plants. We had been noticing that our pair of Angelfish had been cleaning various surfaces in the aquarium, including the filter return pipe, leaves, and the glass on the back of the aquarium. That glass has a lush growth of algae on it. We just observed the pair spawning. We took the following photos over about 15 minutes.
Angelfish Spawning 10 April 2009. Male posing for camera.
The pair was having a difficult time concentrating on what they were doing while chasing the other fish away. A few eggs dropped and the male appeared to eat them.
Angelfish take a Spawning Break 10 April 2009
That is the female fish on the right in the image where they are taking a break. On some passes, she would deposit upwards of 7 eggs.
Angelfish Spawn 10 April 2009
It is now 5:52 PM and it took a bit of time to format and upload these images. The pair seems to have stopped spawning. The female is fanning the eggs while the male is keeping the Rams and Tetras at bay.
Update: Saturday 11 April 2009, 2:05 PM
We just fished a dead Glowlight Tetra from the tank. Yesterday the Glowlights were fine, eating and swimming energetically, but this morning, it was at the surface acting odd. We suspect this was a premature death, either from eating too many worms yesterday, or by being attacked by the Angelfish, which seem to spend a great deal of time aggressively protecting their territory. For the most part, the other fish have learned to keep away. So, here is our fish count:
Angelfish: 2 (Mated pair )plus many fry and eggs, plus two fish boarded at Tropical Imports.
Blue Rams: 6
Glowlight Tetras: 6
Cardinal Tetras: 8
Blue Emperor Tetras: 6
Black Phantom Tetras: 4
Panda Cats: 5
Update: Sunday 12 April 2009, 6:45 pm
The eggs began hatching today about 2 PM, less than 48 hours after being laid. The parents began moving the hatchlings from spawning 2 to the filter return pipe which was inches away from the spawning site. We questioned the wisdom of this location because whenever a hatchling slipped from its location, the water pressure would shoot it across the tank forcing the parents to make a mad dash to retrieve it. We watched several hatchlings get gobbled up by Tetras and decided to intervene earlier this time. Since the hatchlings were in an easy position for us to remove some of them, we went to Petco to buy more airstones, tubing and a two-way valve for the pump. While working in the 10 gallon nursery tank, we decided to remove some water and we realized that the water at the bottom of the tank was much colder since there is no circulation in the tank right now. We lowered the heater to hopefully correct the discrepancy in the temperature and we removed two turkey basters full of hatchlings, putting them in a fry tank with the java fern to cling to. Then we photographed the remaining hatchlings in the community aquarium.
Hatchlings 4 hours old
We had a few losses from the first batch of fry in the past two days. We believe 5 fry died. There are currently 3 fry that do not look well. They are smaller and don’t have full bellies like their siblings. We hope the changes we made this evening don’t upset the temperature and cause more losses. We also believe that we may have an opportunity in the future before the second spawning become free swimming to remove additional hatchlings, but we don’t want to do it too soon. We think it is better for the parents to care for the youngsters at this point.
Update: Friday 24 April 2009, 2:09 AM
Though there haven’t been any updates, much has happened in the past two weeks. Both batches of fry are cohabitating in the 10 gallon tank with two java ferns in pots and two airstones. The largest of the fry, now about 24 days after the eggs were laid, are beginning to change and are starting to look more like angelfish. They are about a centimeter in length. We still feed baby brine shrimp, either live or frozen, at least twice a day. We siphon the water from the bottom of the tank and replace about a gallon of water almost everyday. Very few fry are dying. We also have our 50 gallon tank set up. We picked it up last weekend and filled it with water, flourite gravel and live plants. On Monday past we added 4 Platies as the cycle fish. Kurt talked us into getting them instead of the Rummy Nosed Tetras we had our eye on since the Platies are hardier fish. We are a bit nervous about moving the young Angelfish into the larger tank before we have coaxed them to take dry flake food since we fear they will never find the baby brine shrimp in such a large tank. This weekend, we will attempt to take some photos of the fry and the new aquarium.
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