A Few Questions About Angelfish Spawning

Hi! My beloved angelfish have decided to pair up and spawn. I have successfully raised live bearer fry so I am not totally a newbie but I do need some help.
1. My pair is still spawning and it's been about 8 hours. Admittedly my angels are pretty big and the female was very round with eggs. But it seems like a long time to still be laying and fertilizing. Is that normal?
2. They decided to lay the eggs on my filter intake tube. My problem with that is that once the eggs hatch I'm worried that the filter intake will suck them all up since they are mere inches above.
3. I have an empty 36 gallon tank that I'm debating secluding them into. I don't really want 500 angels but I would love to raise a few fry. Would that be better or worse than just leaving them in my 55 community?
Thanks for reading my long post!

 

If you want any fry to survive you should move the parents to a spawn tank to get a batch of eggs and move the parents back to the community - or you can steal a batch of wigglers and raise some of them in the 36, it needs to be cycled and have pretty much daily water changes to help keep the water pristine for the fry, the fry need live foods like baby brine shrimp, micro worms, vinegar worms, then can be switched slowly to crushed flake or similar foods.

 

1. They probably aren't still actively spawning. Once they are done laying and fertilizing, you will still see them making the same motions (seemingly rubbing their bellies against the intake) as they use their fins to keep movement over the eggs.

2. Mine have been laid on the intake many times. They shouldn't get sucked into the intake before they start swimming. The parents keep them bundled up really well.

3. If I want to raise some from a batch laid on the intake, I will wait until they hatch and start wiggling. And once they are getting close to free swimming (a few days after hatching) I will suck them up with a turkey baster and put them in their own tank. You are able to pick however many you do or do not want to raise. Nature will take its course for the ones you leave in the community. For a 36 gallon grow out tank, I would suggest approx. 20 babies.

 

Thanks for those detailed answers. Luckily the 36 is ready to go with extra cycled media from my community if need be and I've been keeping it at temp juuuuust in case I needed it I think I'll take a few fry just enough that I can keep them. Unfortunately, locally there are a lot of angelfish breeders so I doubt I could rehome too many babies.
Bizaliz3 your response has really calmed my nerves about the whole thing

 

Thanks for those detailed answers. Luckily the 36 is ready to go with extra cycled media from my community if need be and I've been keeping it at temp juuuuust in case I needed it I think I'll take a few fry just enough that I can keep them. Unfortunately, locally there are a lot of angelfish breeders so I doubt I could rehome too many babies.
Bizaliz3 your response has really calmed my nerves about the whole thing

I am so glad I was able to calm your nerves a bit!!
Most mom and pop fish stores will take your angels, just not the chains like petsmart and petco. And they will usually even give a little store credit. I have traded in many many angel babies to the LFS over the last couple years. Usually for plants or other fish.
I have also managed to move some along using craigslist and facebook.

Do you know how to hatch baby brine shrimp? My angelfish babies won't eat anything but LIVE baby brine shrimp for the first few weeks. So you should look into that. Google "brine shrimp hatchery" and you will get lots of examples. Its easier than it may sound. Some have done micro worm cultures like Mcasella mentioned. I haven't tried that yet though.

 

I love learning new things so I'm going to attempt to make a hatchery. I'm sure my platy babies will love it too. I could try trading in some babies but my local mom n pop isn't my favorite but we will see.
Also now I have another question if yoou could be so kind, roughly 10 of my eggs are white this morning should I try to remove them? The parents are too busy running their bellies on the eggs to notice.
Thank youuuuuuuuu

 

I would leave the white eggs alone. The parents need to practice and figure out how to do things. So let them figure it out. And they may not figure it out this time around, but they spawn every 10-14 days, so they will get another shot at it real quick!
It is virtually impossible to remove the white eggs yourself anyway! The parents will attack your hand HARD and you will end up damaging the good eggs while trying to carefully remove the white ones. It doesn't matter how steady handed you are when you have two big angels attacking your hand! it just doesn't work!!