Place your bets!

Blither, Don’t get disheartened. There is hope in the distance yet. Never mind what other people say or what you have read. You can breed any male with any female with 100% success. I have never failed in all my years of breeding. Maybe I have been lucky maybe its how I did it or just the set up. This is all I did.

I used a 24 x 12x 12 bare bottom tank. 50w heater set at 78. Small sponge filter. One male and one female. And no trimmings.

Completely cleaned the tank and washed it again in salt water. Never let it dried just topped it up wih warm water out of the shower and added one measure of Prime. Then added both fish at the correct temp. Needless to say my shower was set at the temp., So when I topped up it was just danddy.

I feed them on tetra prima, I think that’s what it was called. And I used live brine shrimp which I had in ready supply. (Salt lake, which I got of eBay)

I cleaned the tank daily with a sponge scourer like you use for washing up. (fish still in tank) Syphoned any debri out and took out 25% of the water and replaced it with warm water out of my shower, along with one measure of prime.

Ho by the way my measure is a piplet.

That’s all I did.

I had an up turned flower pot with the hole siliconed up.

When eggs appeared, I stopped the daily cleaning till the eggs,riddlers became free swimming.

At free swimming I up the brine srimp to small dosses about every 2-3 hours. And daily cleaned the tank with the fish in. The adults by this time had got used to your hand being in. Carful how you syphon out with the babbies in. I did one side the hushed them to the other.

There you have it. I had 100% success rate every time. Apart from the wild angels I could not get them to breed.

I hear some one saying did I leave the babbies with there parents or when did I move them. Well.

I left the perents with the young all the time.

I removed the parents when the young started to pester the parents. ie:- kept picking them, or it just came over crowded. Then the young finnally got moved on to 36” or 48” growing out tanks.

Hope you and many others that may be reading this article find it usefull.

At the end of the day my moto is Clean an Fresh.

Blither wrote:

Cropped the existing one, is that any better?

Anyone want half a ton of male angelfish? xD

It's just not your day

Haha. 5 males and one female. Typical. xD At least the female is a nice looking fish!

I'm not sure whether to wait a few months to see if Big Smokey pairs off, just to absolutely sure of sex, or just rehome the 4 males and keep Big Smokey and Battleaxe and attempt to pair them.

How sure are we that Big Smokey (first fish) is male? I don't want to get rid of the male pinoy and then regret it!

I have a 24 long x 12 deep x 16 tall tank for spawning, and a 48 x 12 x 16 for growing out in addition to my 48 x 16 bowfront x 24 tall community tank, so I'm all set on that front.

I have a brine shrimp hatchery that produces a steady stream of BBS so they're already getting live food on a regular basis. I can just up the amount of eggs I put in to ensure enough food for babies.

First things first.

Do not get rid of any of your males, specilly Big Smokey. Even if it means getting another tank. If you do you could regret it. What happens if your male dies. Or you change your mind. Me. I'd keep them.

I'm trying to get a good print of Big Smokey so I can put a few lines and pointers on for you. I only have my note book and a bog standard printer up her in Scotland, but I'll see what I can come up with. Hopfully it will aid you all with the sexing of Angels.

Unfortunately I'm limited in the amount of tanks I can keep, even the 4ft grow out tank will have to be in the garage. My grandma lives with me as I'm her carer, and since she uses a wheelchair, floor space is an issue!

I definitely don't want to get rid of Big Smokey though, I know a good fish when I see it. xD Hence why I'd ideally like him to pair with the lone female pinoy.

I 100% understand about your G.Ma.

I have tried to outline the male for you.



Not a very good print out. But if you compare it to the original photo, you might be able to see that it is not a steady line fom the nose to the tail but two. I wish I knew how to explain this better.

I actually had a good read of your previous post with the lovely drawings on sexing before posting, but I have trouble deciding when I can draw a curve and when it's two separate lines! Spots has a fairly distinct two line head, but Big Smokey threw me a little. I think previously I was only judging it up to the start of the spiny bit before the actual fin begins, which may have been the problem!

Based on the right technique and looking at the print out, I think you're right, and even the paraiba is obvious now!

How accurate do you find this method to be? Do males/females ever have the opposite sex head shape, or is it pretty reliable?

The confirmed male and female pinoy definitely seem to conform to the rule at least!

I am over the moon when I find people who can follow what I try to say. I'm not the worlds best conversationalist, in fact I am the worlds worst speller. That does not help, because I have to change a sentances when I get to cetain words. Any way back to the thread. All male and female have the same head to a certain degree, and can be safley sexed. It is just a case of getting used to the roughness of the lines. As I am sure you will find out. It all takes time. Most do not take into account the upper spines. You read the body and don't include the spines, just the line under them. Hence if you have two lines, the join could end up anywere from just behind the noise to near the spines. It works 100%, but please don't ask me how. I saw it in a book many many moons ago, and have used it ever since. There is only one exception and that is a fish with a Nuchal Hump. Almost impostible to sex once the hump has formed.

Mant thanks for your kind comments. With time and practice you too will be able to sex Angelfish.

I'm trying to learn Phil's way of sexing but I still get it wrong sometimes (as we've just found!) but I thought that only males have a nuchal hump? ... okay ... I need to learn some more

Akasha. You may be right and there again you may be wrong. I have never found out the truth yet. To have one breed, I have never tried. Why? I don't like the looks of them and I don't wish to pass on any defects. That's if it is a defect.

Thank you. In that case, there's 4 males up for grabs, Dean! :p I think just having the male I want to keep and the female in the tank is the way to go if you guys think it'll work?

I wonder if the reason the two pinoys paired was simply that they were the only ones that have matured enough, they're only around 6 months old after all.

Spots, Stripes and Little One are younger still, I'm guessing 4-5 months but I'm sure Rob can confirm!

I'd never put money on the sex of an angelfish unless I see it laying eggs, in which case it's female.

Wildreddeer has more experience and a good track record for sexing angelfish, he has fully explained how he does it and those contributions add a lot of value to this angelfish resource. I have read that topic here before and found it a worthy read.

When I applied my method (not actually mine) I got different results that's all, but I recall this method working for me in the past.

Let me know what you want for them, I'll have a sunny drive.
My personal email address is: dean.hd5@gmail.com

Thank you for those kind words Dean

No problem.

Sent you an email, Dean.

I'm guessing 4-5 months but I'm sure Rob can confirm!

All the pinoys come from this pair :-

Mum (Blue clown)


Dad (Chocolate ghost pinoy veil)


Their eggs were laid on 29th December 2014, and went free swimming (which is when I tend to count from) on 5th January, so yes, they're only 6 months old.
Some of their offspring are blue leopards, and paraibas, I think some of the blue leopards you had were siblings of the pinoys.

I also have young from a second pair :-
These ones are actually a few weeks older, my records are flawed as I forgot to write down the date they went free swimming, but they hatched on 19th November, so presumably about the 25th.
I'm fairly certain your paraiba came from this batch, and possibly one or two of the other ones you had.
These come from a very interesting pairing :-

mother is a blue clown veil :-


Whilst Dad is, puzzling.....



To look at him, he looks like a gold marble, but I'm 99% certain that both his parents were homozygous for pb.
Further more, if he was heterozygous for pb, half of his offspring should have been too, yet they all, without exception, express as blue.
as he's matured he's started to look more & more like a platinum marble, but with a strong yellow crown :-



Further more, since all his offspring were smokies, he must be a chocolate (masked by the gold & gold marble gene)
so he's Gm/g - S/+ - Sm/Sm - pb/pb

All their offspring will either be Gm/+ or +/g. The influence of the Gm gene can be very hard to spot, this is one of the youngsters from this batch :-



This one is Gm/+ you can tell by the black spot a short way behind the gill, another, even less obvious one, within the smokey pattern where the rear of the anal fin meets the body, and even more dubiously, the darkish mark behind the eye. In short, it's not always easy to spot.

In terms of pairing, I'd be very wary about splitting the pair that has formed, and getting rid of all the others until you're 100% sure that the new pair have formed a good bond. In my experience it is easier to pair young fish than old fish, who can be very stubborn about which partners they're prepared to accept. However, the female is unlikely to accept a new male if she can still see her old mate, so it may well make sense to move him on.

As a matter of interest Phil, do you fancy drawing some of your lines on this one's profile?
It's definitely female, I saw her laying the eggs! ....


I ask, because, if it's, "the exception which proves the rule", that trait may have passed on to some of her daughters.

I wish I hadn't drunk so much cider - must be the weather

Not much point drawing lines if you know it's a female lol -

That last picture looks very like Spots, who has a similar large 'spot' mark behind the gill on one side (hence the name), so I suspect he's a Gm/+ too.

Do you think it's wise to just rehome the pinoy she's paired with for now, then? The problem is I desperately want to keep Big Smokey and realistically I'm just going to want to rehome any other male she pairs with. If only I'd had more females!

Deans_Angels wrote:I wish I hadn't drunk so much cider - must be the weather

Not much point drawing lines if you know it's a female lol -

I think Rob means that if she shows male traits she could have passed that on to some of mine, so I could have more females than I think.

Not much point drawing lines if you know it's a female lol

My point is that, whilst Phil usually gets them right, as I understand Phil's method, this one would key out as a male.
If it does then that might make sexing her daughters using Phil's method more problematic.
On the other hand, if Phil's method shows it to be a female, then hopefully a few lines on this picture may help me (and others) to better understand his technique!

What I need is for wildreddeer to accompany me to Rob's, and pick me out half a dozen females for Big Smokey. xD

Big Smokey will be a Big Droopy after all that!

Do you think it's wise to just rehome the pinoy she's paired with for now, then? The problem is I desperately want to keep Big Smokey and realistically I'm just going to want to rehome any other male she pairs with. If only I'd had more females!

It's really hard to advise others on what they should or shouldn't do. Obviously you are constrained by the number of tanks you have available.
I have 16 tanks, and I still find it really hard to decide which to keep and which to part with.
Personally I'd select what you hope would be your ideal pairing for her, put them in a breeding tank, and see what results. If they fight, choose the next best partner & so on. Once you have a good pair you're happy with, only then would I part with the rest. If there's one fish that's your absolute favourite, and you must get rid of some of them, keep it, male or female, if the worst comes to the worst, you know where the shop is now, and I've usually got some fish where I'm 100% confident of the sex.

That sounds like a pretty solid plan, Rob. My 20gal breeder is currently home to Nelson, my big gold male, but he's off to my parent's house next week (mum's caught the fish keeping bug!). I'll try putting Battleaxe and Big Smokey together but I'm not sure he'll be ready to spawn, being so young. I suppose if she lays with only him in close proximity though it won't be a bad sign?

Only the two pinoys have shown any sign of pairing so far, literally the first week they were in the tank I had suspicions they would as they'd go everywhere together and boss the others around. I feel a bit guilty for wanting to separate them.

My other option is to allow the pinoys to have a few spawns and see how I do with the fry until the others are around normal breeding age, and then attempt the new pairing.