New pair or not?

I've had a change round, I'd been watching two angels in my main tank, they seemed to be showing all the right signs so I put them in a breeding tank.

Within 2 days I had eggs, Mum is quite young so the eggs were scattered on the cone, a lot went white quickly then they were eaten.

This week she's at it again, but I happened to be in the room, "he" did nothing............. so, have I got 2 females, (i think I can see a little pointy bit, so I really do feel he's a he), has he just no idea what to do........ he is now looking at the eggs, not eating them, but as he's not done the business they'll be white soon..... what to do???

If I see a pair spawning, I leave the room and leave them in peace, otherwise it's not uncommon to see a male so intent on defending his female & eggs from you that he forgets to do his part.
It could also be that he's immature, inexperienced, or indeed, possibly female. But it may simply be that he hasn't fully settled in the new tank, and may well be more enthusiastic next time around.

Thanks Rob, I'll see what happens next week

Well she's been laying every 10 days and the other fish does nothing! lol Would she keep going if it was another female with her? or is he just clueless?? I'm starting to feel very sorry for her.

Sounds like he's either not ready, not interested, or not male, time to try again with a different pair or combination.

It would be nice to see them both in a photo if possible.

Well I had what I thought were two pairs, one tank the female was hiding all the time, the other, the female kept laying but I wasn't sure if I had a male, so I swapped the possible males over.

The shy female has come out and within 2 days has laid, lazy male is actually showing some interest this time and I've seen him do a couple of runs, so maybe he just didn't fancy the first female? He doesn't seem to have got the actions quite right but its looking more hopeful!

The male in the other tank has started cleaning the pot so maybe I might be double lucky?

This is the lazy possible male, sorry its a poor picture, I hadn't spotted the female in the tank was laying and didn't put any lights on.

Well he is definitely a male.

I was convinced aswell, but he obviously didn't really fancy the lady he'd paired with! As I mentioned I did a swap, new lady laid and he showed much more interest, eggs lasted nearly 48 hours, I shall have to see what happens in the future.

I can't believe how hard this is all being, a couple of years ago I had fry coming out of my ears, now its a struggle to get a handful!!

One might think this is a rather a stupid question to ask, but are you giving them plenty of live food.

Assuming you mean the fry?? Yes BBS or Micro worms, not too much at first and plenty of water changes.

OK well lazy male doing well so far, second spawn



the other pair didn't have too many on their attempt, but they got to free swimming yesterday, but gone this morning funny how they sometimes don't cope with that. Still theres always next week!!


Just realised looking at the picture the hole in the flowerpot is uncovered! wonder how that happened I'll have to watch out if these manage to get to free swimmers.

Excellent, at least now you're 100% sure of sexes for both pairs.

I always used to put aquarium sealant over the flower pot hole.
I meant are you feed live food to the parents prior to breeding.

Ohhhh no, adults don't get live food, they get frozen bloodworm etc but nothing live