How to breed Angelfish

[DiscusLover]

I am pretty sure there are thousands of articles on how to breed angelfish but I just wanted to recount from my experiences.

When my angelfish started breeding they were still very young around 4.5 months old. Weird to think about because most websites state that they start around 6 months but that is completely wrong, my angelfish paired off at 3 months and spawned for the first time around 4.5ish months. I kept my angelfish in 81-82 degrees, a tds of 80 and fed them heavy on bbs, blood worms, white worms, brine shrimp, and tropical flakes. One thing that I regret doing when I noticed their first "behaviors" is moving them to a complete seperate tank. It spooked them a little and because it was a new environment they spawned and ate their eggs. I recommend keeping the pair in the original tank and do not move them at all, instead pull the eggs out and hatch them yourself. 

 

Now after they spawn, you want to keep them in a container for them to hatch to wrigglers. For this you need some methalyne blue and aeration. I used a 2.5 gallon tank that I found and used that to hatch my eggs. But any large container that can hold the eggs will work. Now this process may take 2-3 days for them to see any wriggler action. After 5 days they should be free swimming. During that process do not mess with anything in the water or the tank. Just leave them until they start free swimming. Now once you see them free swimming they should be able to take in food. I recommend using hikari first bites or what you can do is use boiled egg mix it in with water and strain it with a cloth to take out any large pieces. I fed my fry this for 2-3 and did small wc after every feeding and did this until they were big enough to feed on baby brine shrimp. At that stage where they were able to feed on bbs I moved them to a 10 gallon and kept them there temporary for a month, I find that in a too large tank the fry find it difficult to find food so in my experience I kept them in a smaller but larger tank. 

 

Raising fry up to an inch is going to take at least 1-2 months. Keeping water clean is a MUST. I repeat do not risk the chance of your fry getting stunted, do 50-70% everyday if you feed 4-6 times every day like I do. If not 10-30% wc will work with small feedings. But do not feed once or twice a day because they need the food and clean water to grow faster and less risks of getting stunted. Once you see their growths and see their angelfish "figure," this is where the cruel part comes in.. Culling. I love my angelfish babies of course but it hurts to cull them espescially raising them up. But thats the dreaded part of fish breeding... For those who do not know what culling is, it basically means putting down fish that have missing fins or body parts because it risks the next line of fish to have that same deformity. But at the end of the day breeding fish is a great and exciting thing to do and I hope that those who have not bred angels before and raised fry please PLEASe give it a shot. 

P.S. I am also selling the parent's fry and so if anyone is interested I am doing pickup only for now (check out selling section) but I will soon ship out maybe in the next month. Thank You!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheSwissAquarist]

Thanks for the fun guide & nice pics!!

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I do very similar things for my Angels. Nice work putting this together!

[rockfisher]

I don’t cull unless there are deformed bad. If color are just off a have a mixed Angel tank that only has off color angels or something small like barbel or one that is much longer. I am clear about them and and sell them a discount. I keep and sell the top fish for more and when asked why I explain. 

[DiscusLover]

On 11/29/2022 at 3:36 PM, rockfisher said:

I don’t cull unless there are deformed bad. If color are just off a have a mixed Angel tank that only has off color angels or something small like barbel or one that is much longer. I am clear about them and and sell them a discount. I keep and sell the top fish for more and when asked why I explain. 

I only cull the ones that are missing ventral fins. Some of my fry has that so I cull those.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

@DiscusLover What’s your preferred method to cull? I’ve only ever used clove oil. Wish I had a giant Oscar or something, but I don’t and don’t have the space/time for an additional tank lol

[anewbie]

I'm a lazy breeder; i leave my parents in the community tank (120 gallon); i feed them a variety of dry foods (fluval bug bites; some nls some omega one ... whatever i have laying around); they can easily get their frys to wrigglers; when they move the wrigglers to a convenient place like a jungle val leaf; and i'm in the mood to raise the fry i steal the leaf stick it in a breeder thing in my 29 and start hatching bbs; a few days later when they are free swimming i feed them and use a turker blaster or eye dropper depending on their container before each feeding to remove anything to decay. After a while they get bigger and i move to small dry food - i once try putting them in a pail but it turns out they are very unhappy if they can't see me so now i just raise them in a 29 and when they get larger a larger aquarium. 

[Levi_Aquatics]

Thanks for the detailed information! I am looking to breed some angels, so this will hopefully help out!