Should I give up?

I have a pair of blues who have very kindly produced me many fry, they were brilliant parents, they lost track a bit last year, so I put them in my display tank for a rest.

A month or so ago, I brought them back out, first spawn they got to free swimmers, then ate them, since then I've had wrigglers, but gone, the last couple of spawns have been 90% white. They seem to be doing all the right things. I did thoroughly clean the tank a couple of spawns ago, thinking maybe it was that, but no change.

Should I give up with them and let another pair have the tank? I guess they must be coming up to 3 years old maybe?

Helo bridgegirl99:

Yo intentaría por el método de la cría artificial, sacando la puesta una vez fecundada.

A greeting

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Google translator

I try by the method of artificial breeding, taking the set once fertilized.

ok thank you worth a try

If you're asking, is 3 years too old to breed angels I would say no. Some people will put off breeding until the fish are 2 years old, as I understand, this is to enable the fish to reach its maximum potential size. So they're not ready for retirement just yet.

Removing the eggs from the parents gives you a better guarantee, but it's up to the individual breeder to make that decision. I wouldn't think badly of you. When a pair forms, they don't have to stay a pair for life - have you considered trying to pair them to other partners?

It could be down to conditioning, maybe the male wasn't quite ready. If there's a sure thing going on with your other pair, I'd swap out if my goal was to produce the most amount of angels. If you have another goal then perseverance may pay off. Your call, all pairs are different so it's hard to outsmart a fish.

I picked up a pair the other night (marble male), they're very chunky and at least 3 years old. Maybe they'll breed, maybe they won't, that's the fun of it, taking a punt - if everything was certain it would be very boring - don't you think?

All sorts of environmental factors can influence hatch rate.
I have a hunch, no hard evidence to back it up, that when fish are moved to a new tank, it can take a couple of spawns for them to adapt to the new water quality, especially if the pH is higher than they were previously in.
Other factors that can also influence things:-
Diet, make sure you're feeding a good quality diet, quality flake food, supplemented with a good range of frozen foods, I'd avoid live because of the risk of introducing parasites & predators.
Disease, are the parents in good condition, or do they look a bit thin, have they been wormed recently? However that leads on to
Medication, some medications, may have a short term adverse effect on fertility.
Distraction, can they see you, or other fish when they're spawning? If so, is the male getting distracted from preforming his duties.

I certainly wouldn't give up on them, I might try to lower the pH, and I might try giving them extra, high quality, rations. If they persistently fail, I'd give them a break & a prophylactic course of wormer, and possibly WS3 or Octozin.

Thanks all for the useful comments, must admit I'd not checked the Ph, maybe once more then lol, I just love blues!!

Well I've checked the Ph and I'm shocked at the difference, so maybe that is my problem?? My display tank which is getting a W/C tomorrow is 6.4 and the breeding tank is 7.6, I have no idea what causes the difference, I guess I'm lazy with the display tank, both have hard London tap water with RO added, I think my RO filter needs changing.............. I'm a bad fish keeper!!! poor fish!

would the 7.6 be causing the problems with the eggs going white? Somehow it was all so easy last year...... ohh dear (At least I'm confessing to my problems)

OK done some more testing (as you do!!) my tap water came up up as 7.2 maybe slightly more, my RO was 6.2, so what is raising it to 7.6 in the tank?

All thats in there is 2 fish, a spawning cone, a sponge filter and a java fern, its bare bottomed and clean, I'm confused and ignorant!!

The more alkaline (higher) the pH is, the harder it is for the eggs to be fertilized. Basically because the high pH causes the egg membrane to harden more rapidly, making it harder for the sperm to penetrate & fertilize.
Angels can breed successfully in 7.6 pH, but in my experience you tend to get better results at lower pH's.

what is raising it to 7.6 in the tank?

The usual buffering system is an interaction between kH (calcium carbonate) & CO2 (carbon dioxide). At any given level of CO2, the lower the kH, the lower the pH. At any given kH, the higher the CO2 level, the lower the pH.
Check your kH levels, if they're above 2, use RO water (which should be devoid of kH) to bring the kH and therefore the pH down. Reduce the amount of aireation, to help raise CO2 levels slightly, and consider adding some bogwood or peat to acidify the water, but take care. Too far the other way can also cause problems.

OK thanks Rob I'm on to it!

As Rob said be careful PH can swing rapidly with low KH, and fluctuations up and down with not please your fish. You can also use acid to drop the PH which works well for me

OK I've tested it and it came up 200 ppm which I assume is the 2 you talk about? The bubbles on the sponge filter are quite vigorous, so I assume I should be slowing this down a bit?

Would almond leaves work as well as bogwood or will that cause more problems?

This is so complicated lol, but if it works.................

Just so I know I'm testing right, I tested my RO water and yes its 0!!

OK I've tested it and it came up 200 ppm which I assume is the 2 you talk about?

No! - kH is usually measured in degrees of German hardness (dH) 1 dH = 17.8 ppm, so a reading of 200 ppm is equivalent to about 11 or 12 dH. Assuming you are using a carbonate hardness test kit (KH) and not a General or Permanent Hardness (GH) test kit. 12 dH is quite high. do daily 10 - 20% water changes until you're getting a reading in the tank about 40-50 ppm, and you should see the pH follow it down to about 7. good luck.

Ahhh OK  I see what you're saying, I've re read the leaflet! I knew we had horrid water here, everything furs up instantly, poor fish, but I guess they're used to it. But not much use for breeding?

Interestingly I've just tested the Ph of the tank next door, which has juveniles in, and the ph is 6.6, how very odd

Just as an aside, what acid do you use to lower pH Simon?- vinegar??
I've read internet articles of some people throwing vodka in to reduce Nitrates, so nothing would surprise me!

As for different pH readings between tanks:
You have to consider that the parameters of your tap water may change from time to time because they may not always get it from the same source. Your RO unit has changeable internal filters, which have a specific lifetime expectancy, see their instructions / recommendations.

Even if you always added a 20/80 mix to your tanks and removed the exact same % of water from each for the water change, you can expect each tank to have a different pH. This is because each tank has its own unique dynamics and over time it's quite normal for pH to gradually lower.

There's nothing wrong with a low pH of say 6.0 for angelfish, the staff at one pet shop in Leeds told me I would need pH 5.5 for a Peruvian F1 angel to breed. What you want to avoid is rapid changes in pH, so the small daily water change sounds like a good idea to me.

Well I've been doing daily water changes, the Ph was going down, I've put in an Almond leaf, but I've had to stop! They spawned yesterday!! So far so good, we have about a dozen white eggs 24 hours later, they're both being attentive, so we'll have to see what happens next!

You see, all it takes is a leaf to change the pH

I think my wrigglers are on a 'go slow', the more I watch, the longer they take!

Good luck with them there eggs!

Yes, good luck!

Ohh well back to the water changes A few more have gone white and they seem to be munching the good eggs!!