First, the bad news: it appears that none of the angelfish babies that hatched this past week have survived in the community tank. There are a number of hiding places, however, so the possibility does exist that I will find a few who have remained well-hidden from me as well as predators.
The good news: once a pair of angels successfully lays eggs and sees them hatch, they are hooked. About every two weeks that they are without babies to care for, they will lay more eggs. This could go on for months -or even years- at a time.
So today I discovered that they had laid more eggs on the same intake.
I had a dilemma.
If I allowed them to repeat the process of laying eggs in the community tank, I ran the risk that none of the babies would ever survive. Once they became free swimmers, it was just too much of a challenge to keep corydoras, plecos and tetras at bay.
I realized that because I'd removed the other angelfish to a separate community tank when John and Christy McFish decided to have a family, there were no predators in that tank that would bother my neon tetras, which had been housed in a separate, smaller tank. (Grown angelfish will eat neons.)
That is, there would be no predators if John and Christy McFish weren't there.
So today I moved all of the neon tetras, corydoras and two small plecos from their smaller tank (20 gallons) to the larger community tank (70 gallons) where they joined larger tetras and more corydoras. (I love corydoras; they seem like busy little Merry Maids.)
And I moved John and Christy McFish to the smaller tank, which is now officially the Honeymoon Suite.
The eggs on the intake were left behind, so they will be food for the fish that remained in the tank. However, once John and Christy realize they are all by themselves without any predators to harm their babies in the Honeymoon Suite, they'll lay eggs again. And this time, the babies have a much better chance of survival.
Stay tuned, and I'll post updates when they begin working on a family again!
p.m.terrell is the award-winning author of more than 20 books, including the Black Swamp Mysteries Series, which features CIA operatives who use an angelfish breeding facility as a front to cover their covert activities. Read Vicki's Key for details on raising angelfish from a breeder's perspective! And visit www.pmterrell.com for more infomation on all p.m.terrell's books!
Visit p.m.terrell's YouTube channel for videos on Angelfish Keeping and Breeding: https://www.youtube.com/user/terrellpm
