Breeding Angelfish

Getting That First Angelfish Spawn

If you bought a proven breeding angelfish pair, it doesn't mean they will spawn immediately. The trip to their new home may have thrown them off their breeding cycle. They may go through a few weeks of adjustment. Try to make them feel secure, house them in a quiet location and preferably place their aquarium on a high stand or rack. The movement of your head going by is not as fast as the speed of your legs walking by. You should not put them in with other fish, especially other angelfish. They usually spawn much more readily when they are by themselves.

Breeding most ornamental strains of angelfish is not considered especially difficult, but even the easiest fish may give you poor results if they have not been kept in good condition. This usually means good water conditions and a steady supply of high quality food. A sign of a poorly conditioned angelfish is one that eats very little, or is visibly thin and without vigor. These angelfish can be brought into spawning condition. It just takes patience and good care. Give them some time and they will usually reward you.

If you choose to get a dozen or so juvenile angelfish, and you take very good care of them, you can expect to see pairs start to form around six to seven months of age. Some weaker strains such as double-dose black angelfish or strains with a lot of wild blood in them may take longer.

They should all be housed in the same large aquarium. A dozen should have at least a 70-gallon aquarium, and preferably an even larger one. Eventually, you should notice a couple of fish staying together and driving off all other angelfish. When you see a pair acting like this for a day or two (just to make sure) remove them to a spawning aquarium that is set up well in advance. You may get a spawn almost immediately or it may take a few more weeks of heavy feeding and good care.

If nothing happens, there are a couple of techniques that can bring on that first angelfish spawn. You can raise the temperature a few degrees, do a very large water change (75% or more) with slightly cooler water, attempt to give the fish more security with more plants, or even try a larger aquarium or a new location. Another key may be to feed very heavy for a few days with a good food such as a high quality freeze-dried food. Live food can work, but great care must be taken when feeding them. Sometimes the sight of another angelfish will do the trick. It can even be in an adjacent tank. If these tricks don't work, then it's time to try adding Reverse Osmosis water or De-ionized water. If everything fails, try pairing them up with different angelfish or put them back into a large group of angelfish in a big aquarium and let them pair-off again.

If you place them back into the large aquarium, be sure to watch them for the first day or so. Some fighting will usually occur as they re-establish territories for themselves. Any damage at this point is usually not serious if the aquarium is large enough and has enough hiding places. Valuable, young adult angelfish are worth the effort it takes to keep an eye open for trouble.

If one angelfish out of the pair is simply too aggressive you will have to separate them by putting a divider into their aquarium. To accomplish this, get some "egg crate" material that is normally used to diffuse light on fluorescent fixtures. Cut it so that it will divide the aquarium in half. This material has holes in it that allow the angelfish to see each other. Each angelfish should be given the proper conditions for spawning i.e., good food, high temperatures, spawning slate, frequent large water changes, etc. When both angelfish act as if they really want to get to the other side, or when their breeding tubes drop, you can then move the egg crate slightly to allow a crack for the angelfish to swim through. If this doesn't work you should try the same procedure with a larger tank. Introduce the less aggressive one into the new tank first.

Breeding angelfish successfully sometimes requires a bit of experimentation. Angelfish will spawn on almost anything. The key is to offer them something that they will usually choose over most other surfaces and to be sure it is something convenient and easy to remove when hatching artificially. Anything that is very porous may harbor harmful bacteria or fungus. If it is translucent, or the wrong color (generally lighter colors), the eggs can be difficult to see. Eggs will not stick well on some materials. The fish must spawn on one side and you must be able to flip it over so a stream of air bubbles can flow near the eggs while they are upside down. If you don't have the eggs upside down when hatching, it is more difficult to get a good flow of water over the eggs. Hatch rate seems to be somewhat lower if the eggs are facing upward. This adequate flow is important to keep the eggs from dying. We use a 2" x10" spawning slate made specifically for the purpose of artificially hatching angelfish eggs. We put two or three in each breeding aquarium to give the angelfish pairs a choice of spawning locations. This technique almost always works to get them spawning on one of the slates.

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