1st Time Angelfish Parents!

HI all!

So I am very excited and looking for advice

I raised these two angelfish from when they were quarter sized (no they are not sibblings). They were the only two, so I never expected to get a male and female no less to have them pair up, but they did!

So... first question:
Can someone help me sex them? Unfortunatly I didnt see them breed, nor do either of them appear to have a pronounced 'hump' but perhaps someone with more experience can tell the difference. I *think* the one with less finiage/more black and orange is female, and the one with linger fins but mostly silver is male... so that is how I will reference them in my post.

The "male" is constantly chasing the tank mates (including the catfish and mystery snails if you can believe it) to the other half of the tank. Then he returns to moving the clear (fertilized?) Eggs to different locations on the rock. Sometimes he missed the rock and the female picks up after him. Otherwise the female just sits in the corner doing nothing but staring at the eggs (no chasing fish or eating/moving eggs). I am having a hard time, but there appears to be roughly 100 fertilized eggs (some are probably grains if sand though). There is a (gentle) steady flow of water going over the eggs from ine of my filters.

Okay so more questions:
2) should I try to save this batch? This is their first and I do not have another tank set up, etc to raise fry in (though I have spare tanks, cycled filters, etc I can use).
3) if I were to save them, I was thinking about moving the rock and dad to a 30g, but not the mom. Opinions?
4) Do MTS pose a threat to the eggs? They are the inly thing the dad doesn't seem to be able to keep away, probably because there are so many (very guilty of overfeeding here)

5) what would you feed angelfish fry OTHER THAN baby brine shrimp? I feed the parents flakes and sinking pellets as staples. They also go mad for beef heart (originally got it for my discus but my angelfish like it more), shrimp, and any live foods I give them. With kther frI I raised, Ive usually fed mosquito larvae as the staple. Would this work alright with angelfish fry?
6) I can't see a way to do my WC this weekend without disturbing the parents and causing even more stress to the tankmates. The parameters are fine, so I'm going to hold off until I decide what to do.
7) please share tips, tricks, opinions, etc!








PS sorry for such a long post!

 

Update:
Okay so I woke up this morning to find all the eggs gone. The parents aren't guarding any location, so I assume they were eaten and not just moved.

HOWEVER I would still like my questions answered for next time if anyone would be so kind

 

I separated my fry after about 2 weeks I think, fed them BBS and egg yolk. I have MTS like you do maybe more and did not have a problem, the first few batches were eaten than I noticed the male taking better care of the eggs so I removed the female, he raised the fry up just fine, still have 14 to catch and relocate to the fry tank. May I ask why you don't want brine shrimp? Good luck

 

Congrats on the pair.
To sex them for you I would need to see their breeding tubes since neither of them look like an obvious male.
Its not a surprise the eggs were eaten. Angels almost always need a few tries before they get it right.
I have fed BBS and microworms to angelfish babies. They have never been willing to eat anything that isn't moving during the first couple weeks. I've never had luck with first bites or crushed flakes or anything like that. I've never tried mosquito larvae.
If you want to raise their babies, you will need another tank set up for them to grow out in. And it can't be a little 10G tank. (well, it can be for the first few weeks, but after that, they need more room to grow healthy)
OH and there is absolutely no reason to move dad with his babies. When you are ready to remove the babies, you don't bring mom or dad with them. I like to remove babies once they have hatched and are little wigglers. Its easiest to let mom and dad get them hatched for you.

 

I separated my fry after about 2 weeks I think, fed them BBS and egg yolk. I have MTS like you do maybe more and did not have a problem, the first few batches were eaten than I noticed the male taking better care of the eggs so I removed the female, he raised the fry up just fine, still have 14 to catch and relocate to the fry tank. May I ask why you don't want brine shrimp? Good luck

So hatched and initially raised the fry in your community tank? No problems aggression or eaten eggs/fry, etc?

Also how long are you keeping the dad with the fry? For a few weeks or until the fry are large enough to be added into anither tank? I'm a newb to raising angels haha

Well... id rather not do to the trouble of hatching and raising brine shrimp if sticking a bucket of water in my back yard yields the same results. I'm already harvesting mosquito larvae and my fish love them, so why all the fuss about baby brine shrimp?

 

Congrats on the pair.
To sex them for you I would need to see their breeding tubes since neither of them look like an obvious male.
Its not a surprise the eggs were eaten. Angels almost always need a few tries before they get it right.
I have fed BBS and microworms to angelfish babies. They have never been willing to eat anything that isn't moving during the first couple weeks. I've never had luck with first bites or crushed flakes or anything like that. I've never tried mosquito larvae.
If you want to raise their babies, you will need another tank set up for them to grow out in. And it can't be a little 10G tank. (well, it can be for the first few weeks, but after that, they need more room to grow healthy)
OH and there is absolutely no reason to move dad with his babies. When you are ready to remove the babies, you don't bring mom or dad with them. I like to remove babies once they have hatched and are little wigglers. Its easiest to let mom and dad get them hatched for you.

Sadly, I didn not see them actually breeding, I just came home to find them guarding the eggs.

I have extra 30 and 40 gallon tanks, same foot size. I also have another 60 gallonbut I don't have proper equipment for it.
I am also expecting my cories to breed again soon, would there be any issues raising the fry together, if they hatch around the same time?

Also, I have read a lot about the benefits of having parents raise the fry. Is all of this false? Its hard to tell what's fact and what's fiction... and what is grey zone where people really don't know (lol). Regardless, I would probably move the eggs before they hatch, and move "dad" with them. Is that a good plan?

 

Also, I have read a lot about the benefits of having parents raise the fry. Is all of this false? Its hard to tell what's fact and what's fiction... and what is grey zone where people really don't know (lol). Regardless, I would probably move the eggs before they hatch, and move "dad" with them. Is that a good plan?

Letting them parents raise means leaving both parents with their eggs in the tank they laid them in. I have never tried moving a parent to a new tank with their eggs. I can't imagine that working. I would think the stress of being moved to a new tank would cause them to just eat the eggs you moved with them. Heck, they might not even realize its their own eggs. I have heard of people having to remove one parent due to them not being a good parent. But that would be moving the bad parent out, not moving the eggs and the good parent out.

If anyone has tried moving eggs and one parent to a new tank and had that be successful, please chime in. But I don't envision it working at all.

Yes, there are benefits to parent raising, but many angels will never figure out how to parent raise.

 

Alright... egg batch #2!
Woke up to find them guarding the rock again. They seem to have fertilized more of the eggs this time too, but aren't as protective... at least they aren't terrorizing the entire tank rn.

bizaliz3
So you would recommend leaving them as is? They did lay the eggs near my filters... will this be a problem when the eggs hatch?

 

Update: eggs have been eaten
Guess these guys really need some work on parenting.... best not to eat yout eggs within 12 hours of laying them.

Ill be setting up my 40 gallon soon and moving the parents over. Hopefully next time they won't feel threatened if they are the only ones in the tank.