numbr1speedfreek

ok so my angel has laid eggs for the third time now and yet again they all turn white within a day. is there something wrong? will the male know to fertilize them or does he just kinda learn that on his own after a while? the eggs are all a light beige color at 1st and then shortly after, they all start to turn white. i have tried a few different things, the 1st time i just let nature take its course and i caught the angels eating the eggs and by the second day they were all gone. the second time once again i caught them eating the eggs so i tried my best to scoop some of the eggs into my breeder net and sure enough within 2 days all 20 or so eggs i was able to save had turned white. this final time i actually went out and bought a live plant and just as i thought, they laid the eggs all over one of the leaves so i cut that leaf off and set it nicely in my breeder net and weighed it down at the stem so it would stay submerged. this time within 1 day all eggs were white (i'd say at least 150-200 eggs). is there something i should be doing differently or is the male just not fertilizing the eggs? any help would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

Jess

It help people diagnose if you post your tank information pH, stuff like that.

numbr1speedfreek

75g with different community fish (3 rainbows, 2 angels, 2 GBRs, clown loach, a few different tetras) not sure about the ph but i do know that every time i check there is 0 amm 0 nitrite and about 20-25 ppm nitrate and i do about 35% water changes weekly. not sure what else to say about it. im starting to think it is just inexperience and that maybe they will get it right in the future. the angels are still pretty young, probably only 8 months or so, and they just started laying eggs last month so im hoping they just need some more practice.

mathas

Angelfish eggs turning white is often a sign that they're unfertilized.

It could be that the male hasn't figured out what to do yet (though mine seemed to catch on right away), or it could be that you don't have a male at all. Have you happened to pay attention to the shape/size of their breeding tubes right before or during spawning? Behavior may not always be a clue, as the following article mentions:

Chief_waterchanger

We have a pair of female angelfish that only lay eggs with one another (of course, they go unfertilized because they block any male's attempt to fertilize them.)

Mathas is very correct in that scenario being a possibility. You may have a sterile male. Some questions have been raised about some of the tranquilizer chemicals as to whether, in improper dosages, they may cause sterility in fish or not. The tranq chemicals come into question if the fish was ever shipped using a tranquilizing chemical (much the way some/most stores receive their stock.)

If the pH were too far off for the eggs you would probably see signs of stress and down-hill progression of the adult fish's health, I believe.

What is the tank temperature? A lot of tropical egg-laying fish tend to do well with 75-82 degrees farenheit, especially when eggs are present.

COBettaCouple

It does sound like they're just not getting fertilized with them all going white so quick. With our pair, adding a piece of slate to the tank helped the male learn to fertilize the eggs.