Breeding Angelfish

Here is the method that is working for me when breeding angelfish, I hope I will be able to offer a few tips that I have picked up a long the way. Most of the techniques I have learned from other breeders or from other websites and have found a few tricks myself, I hope they can be of some use to you!

Here is a list of some of the things you will need to get started:
1. Methylene Blue, Acriflavin+
2.Breeding slates
3. Hatching bowl, (I use wide mouthed round 1 Gal. Fish Bowl from Wal-Mart)
4. few 10 gallon tanks for starting out the fry
5. several grow out tanks for the angels
6. Air pumps, air stones, tubing,
7. Sponge filters, (few types I use are Hydro sponge to start out in 10 gallon for fry) (large pore sponge filters from Steve@angelsplus for fish after moving them to grow out tanks)
8. You may want to check out submersible heaters I use them in all my tanks and in hatchery for sure with all the water changes they will pay for themselves 10 times over!!
9. plenty of buckets and nets tank vacs, and a couple of hoses for draining your tanks. I use airline tubing to siphon the bottom of 10 gal. and the hatching jars also.
10. I use a medicine dropper it looks like a small turkey baster and works wonderful for removing white eggs or debris in hatching jar or any dead fry from tanks.
11. You will need a brine shrimp hatchery of some type. You can either buy a kit or can use glass pickle jar or can use 2 liter pop bottles they usually use these with hatching kit. and you will need to start the hatchery up when you are on day six from the time the eggs were laid.

Once you have a pair of angels the fun begins! I keep there water at 82-84 degrees, and feed them 3- 4 times a day, a variety of flakes and freeze dried bloodworms, freeze dried brine shrimp and frozen brine for a treat.
Their diet is very important so please feed them well.
Small amounts several times a day is best so you won't over feed them. I keep breeders and fry in bare bottom tanks makes cleaning them much easier and the fry will get stuck if there are rocks in the tank.

Once your pair is established add the breeding slat to their tank. once they spawn you will have the choice of letting the parents raise the fry or you may swipe the slate and hatch them yourself. Not all parents will do this so most of the time I take the slate and hatch myself.

From the time an egg is laid it will take 7 days for the wigglers to become free-swimming.
Day 1 eggs are laid. Remove the slate and add it to prepared hatching jar.(have 10 gallon ready for incubator, take the hatching jar and fill with clean water from 10 and add 7-10 drops meth. blue till water is medium to dark blue I also add 3 drops acriflavin+ add air stone and place in 10 gallon tank making sure that water is low enough in the tank to not submerge the bowl. Also keep the temperature same as parent tank 82-84 degrees. I also run sponge filter on this tank and air stone to keep the water clean and fresh. You will use this tank for doing your water changes on the hatching bowl as well.

Day 2 few eggs may turn white if they were not fertilized. meth blue should keep things fine at this point.

Day 3 the eggs should start hatching by the end of the day check the slate and the ones that are wiggling gently shake from the slate and at this time when all have come off the slate remove it. Now you will need to get out the flashlight and clean up the hatching jar. I use a siphon tube(stiff airline tubing) and use the flashlight so you won't be sucking up the wigglers, and siphon out at least half of the water in bowl. Make sure to clean the bottom up the best you can. once the level is down use the med. dropper to get out any white eggs or debris you may have missed.

Day 4 Same as day 3 50% water change on the bowl cleaning as you do this.                     

Day 5 Same as day 4

Day 6 Same as day 5 only today you will need to start your brine shrimp hatchery up. You may want to make a practice run on day 5 to make sure everything is under control. I use 2 teaspoons fresh water aquarium salt and determine amount of shrimp eggs as to how many are eating. if only one hatch 1/4teaspoon should be more than enough, once things get going you will need to increase the amount of eggs. You will need to make fresh brine shrimp every 24 hours at the end of the day either freeze for use later incase of a bad hatch, or discard the rest if any left. After harvesting my shrimp, I drain them threw a brine shrimp net and add them to a clean bottle of water with a little aquarium salt and put them in the refrigerator. making sure to use a bottle with top cut off or a shallow dish whatever may work for you.

Day 7 Your Angels should be free-swimming today once they are all swimming around they will be ready to eat some shrimp. I usually wait a few hours after I notice them swimming. Then I put a small amount taking mind not to put too much (brine shrimp decomposes very fast and will make bad bacteria which will result in death of fry so be careful not to overfeed.) I add this to the hatching jar. I wait 30 minutes giving them time to eat, then I siphon them into their tank or into a 2 liter. pop bottle (top cut off) This method works well for me beings the bottle fits down in the tank better than the bowl plus this way most of the debris stays in the bowl. Once they are all in the bottle I gently pour them into the tank rinsing any that may stick to bottle into tank.

When starting the fry out in the 10 gallon tank, I only use 4-5 gallon of water enough to reach an inch or 2 above the filter. Each day I change out at least 50-75% of the water making sure to get the bottom of tank clean I also use a flashlight to see the debris better and also helps to move the fry they tend to move out of the light. Each day I add an extra 2 liters. of water when doing my water change so over a few days the water will eventually get up to the top. I feed the new fry 3 times a day . Less more often is a good way to not over feed and if you notice shrimp in a huddle after feeding them you will need to get it out. Remember it will spoil quickly. And check several times a day to make sure that any fry that may die will also need to be removed.

Once Fry are a few weeks old they will be ready to move to a bigger home.(2-4 weeks depending on how much they have grown and how big the spawn was) I usually move them by the 3rd week. Continue to feed regular and keep their tanks nice and clean! I usually let them grow until the bodies is at least nickel in size then they are ready to sell! Good luck in raising some Beautiful Angels!

This is the method I have been using for almost 2 years now and have a great success rate if I haven't covered something or have left something out and you need to ask a question feel free to contact me and I hope to be able to help you.