My First attempt at raising angelfish fry

[Guppy Guy]

Hello everyone!

I recently had a pair of angelfish in my 30 gallon aquarium pair up and lay eggs. This wasn’t the first time as they would do it every now and again. They would just eat the eggs and carry on. This time though, I decided to take the eggs out and artificially raise them. They laid them on a piece of pipe I had in the tank, so removal was easy. I moved it into my 3 gallon tank(linked in my signature), and added an air stone and a single guppy to keep it cycled. Now they are starting to hatch into the wriggling stage, so I will move them into a specimen container later. This is already farther then I thought I would get, so I am extremely excited. I also just lost my favorite angelfish this week, so if this succeeds, maybe I won’t feel so bad about the loss. Here is a small video of the wrigglers just moving out, as well as a picture of the eggs. I will update as soon as I change something.

[Guppysnail]

Awww too cute.  That is crazy exciting for you!  I’m looking forward to following along!  

[Guppy Guy]

I just finished moving the wrigglers into a specimen container to grow out. I used a thin piece of 3D-printed plastic to scrape them off the pipe, and it seems to have work really well. I also painstakingly removed as many eggs with fungus as I could, using tweezers. Now they are floating in the back of my 30 gallon tank in the container.

I know they will have to eat in a few days, but I don’t want to have to go through the hassle of hatching brine shrimp, and I only have adult brine shrimp frozen. In Dr. Axelrod’s book “Freshwater Angelfishes”, he mentions boiling an egg, taking the yolk, and squeezing it through a handkerchief in the water for food. Is this still valid 70 years later? Unless anyone has objections, I think I will try it. I would love to hear opinions though!

Sorry about the low resolution of the picture. I had to zoom way in to capture the fry.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Guppy Guy

[Guppy Guy]

Today, the fry started free swimming! I’ve heard that once they get passed the wiggler stage, its easy going, so I hope thats true. I am going to start them on some frozen BBS from my LFS today, as I haven’t had time to hatch any lately.

As far as care goes, they are floating in a specimen container in the 30 gallon the eggs were originally laid in. Every day, I use tweezers I 3D printed to remove any dead ones and other mulm, and a 50 ml syringe to do a 75% water change, replacing the water with tank water. There is also a small air stone gently making bubbles to keep the water oxygenated. 

Excuse the photo-bombing guppies. They are sad if they aren’t in the picture 😂. 

[Guppy Guy]

So, I failed. I had to go on a business trip over the weekend, and came back to find that 90% of the fry died. I assume that it was because I was not here to do water changes, and I overfed a little before leaving. Also, that specimen container was extremely small, and I firmly believe that the more water volume a tank has, the more stable it is. The 5 fry that did survive were all half dead and weren’t going to make it, so I put them out of their misery by letting the zebra danios have them.

Next time I try this, I will have a mesh breeder box so they are in the large water volume without the predators, and I will feed less with more variety. I will start a new thread if/when that happens and will link it below. Thanks for following my journey, and I hope you learned something.

[PineSong]

Aw, shucks. I am sorry that happened. You did well to get them to the swimming stage and I think your plans for the future sound like they will help with survival. If at first you don't succeed, and all that.