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my angelfish have bred hundreds of times the eggs hatch successfully but then the angel fish eat them over night!! they are the only two fish in the tank i dont know what to do

Cheers

Hi there!

It is normal for most fish to eat their eggs and their fry (With the exception of some cichlids, and some plecos). If you want to keep the eggs and the babies, you should make the parents spawn in another tank with the exact same conditons, or even better conditions than your main tank. That way you will have a growout tank, and dont have to move any fish.

Good luck with that!

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You will need a second cycled tank for this. (10g)

1. Try pulling the father from the tank before the hatch.
Give the mom a chance to parent undisturbed.

2. If that doesn't work, pull the mom the next time round.

How many gal is your tank ?


The Amazon Nut...

IME its more usual for the female to eat eggs than the male, I think a lot of comments about cichlid males eating eggs and fry are more to do with the usual human sexist hedgemony than actually anything to do with fish behaviour. Its the mother who will generally want to re-ingest protien from the eggs if she feels something has gone wrong, all the better for her to make up a new batch quickly and recover her energy from a breeding effort, whereas the males contribution to the proceedings is usually a lot less calorific. Most cichlid males do make excellent parents among the usual pair bonding groups of SA and CA cichlids most available.

Angel fry will browse parents slime too, so as much as possible its better not to seperate them at all as a first step, but instead look at the factors behind possible repeated egg-eating behaviours. Often its to do with disturbance, the presence of other species, and lack of cover. An angel with a quiet life in a species tank will be far less likely to consume eggs. Its also possible that the parents may need more food during breeding times, not only for their own sake but for the production of aufwuchs and infusoria which would be good extra food for fry.

Sometimes a spotless tank is not the answer, sometimes background free, brightly lit, and lightly planted tanks arent the answer either. Massive available surface area, caves, bogwood , many, many tall plants like echinodas etc, all increase the chances of successful egg and fry survival. Sometimes even the water quality needs to be checked, if things are coming up too hard on the ph front, then the fry may be developmentally damaged, and while the fry might be too small for a keeper to gauge this accurately, the fish will be assessing that from day one.

Just things to try before advocating seperation, because dont forget angels can be moody about being seperated and introduced, not only because they dont necessarily take tankmoves well, but also because sometimes couples are not successfully reunited on reintroduction.There is a potential for the pair to break up permanently

. When you see site cleaning behaviours begin , and egg laying is about to be imminent, give them extra seclusion, even newspaper taped to the front of the tank and left in situ for 2-3 weeks can really help.

Generally once eggs are laid, water changes have to cease anyway for a couple of weeks , so lack of disturbance is key, and if you want to do water changes, do them when things happen just before breeding, not during or after.

Make feeds fatty with foods like bloodworm for post laying recovery, and to reassure the parents mentally that a glut of food is around, and that their fry have a good chance of survival, and you may find many egg eating behaviours cease. Keep feeds plentiful but as low profile as possible.Dont forget, in the wild fish breed only under favourable conditions, and its your job to ensure their perception of events is consistant, and that food is plentiful.Anything less, the couple eat the eggs, and they wait for a better time. Thats what egg-eating is all about- preparing for a better time with the minimal calorific loss possible.

Its only the really paranoid fish you ever need segregate or you could end up with some pretty poor fry, single parent circumstances arent ideal for angels. Truly paranoid fish are few and far between, theres nearly always something you can do to stop them eating eggs, even if its a problem fundamentally caused by being in community, or their fish's beloved owner staring at the eggs and watching the angels closely, not realising that for all the world he/she looks like a major 5-6 ft tall predator. Would you bother to raise eggs if you thought the chances of them surviving in your mind , was practically nil, and theres a naggin urge to consume them yourself in the back of your mind?

Its natural behaviour, but the trick is learning not to trigger it in your fish.

Chew it over before you start seperating fish.

thanks heaps the tank is in the kitchen and is a 20gal so they probably think there living in the lord of the rings or something lol. so should i just feed them extra because they lay eggs everyweek on the weekend and eat em on like wednesday like clockwork. I was told by the fish stores to leave the light on over night (and it didnt work it actually made it worse) the tank is basicaly empty with a few rocks and fern (which they breed on) anyway thanks for the tips ill be sure to try them tonight seeing as they layed eggs today which is strange lol

Cheers

should i introduce some convict dither fish cause i have around 200 of these half an inch savages lol

Cheers

the convicts would attack the angels. if you want dither fish get some danios. they are as cheap as dirt and are very hardy and fast enough to get away from the angels.

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even if the convicts are only 1/2 an inch they will get to be very territiorial and may take over 3/4 of the tank. they have been known to pick fishts oscars three times their size and win!

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What I used to do is pop in a removable glass partition to separate the parents away from the eggs. I just added a little airstone to circulate the water on the eggs side.