[fla2341]

I'm attempting to breed Flame Angelfish. I'm posting a new thread for the first time so please bear with me. I'm putting this information up so that others might gain from my experiences.

The tank I'm using is very basic. It's a 120 gallon tank I used as a sump for my larger tank I had to shut down and sell several years ago. It is divided into three parts. The left side is divided using egg crate and covered with plastic fabric with 1/8" squares. I use this section for my neon gobies and algae. It's approx 1' in lenght. The center of the tank is approx 4' and has my live rock and some corals. This section also hosts the pair of Flame Angels as well as a Royal gramma, urchin, several small starfish, 1 mexican turbo snail, spegetti worms, cryptic sponges and copepods. That's it for tank inhabitants other then the un/seldom seen. The left over is the right side and is for the overflow and the protien skimmer. The tank is 72"L x 19"D x 20"T OD.

I aquired the Angelfish in December 2011. The male is from Christmas/Marshall and the female is from Vanuatu. The male was approx 2 1/4" and the female was less then 2" when purchased. They were not a mated pair. It required only 1 week for them to sort out who's who. They started spawning in March of this year. The initial spawns were small, only 10-20 eggs each. They occured every 3-5 days and about 1/2 hr right before lights out @10pm. They would spawn in several different locations of the tank.

The spawning behavior was typical and as reported by others. The male would chase the female in and out the rock work. This happens 2-3 hours prior to the actual spawn. The activity increases the closer they get to spawning. The female will flare her fins acrost the view of the male forming a "T" infront of the spawning area. The male nudges her abdomen then they rise together 3-5 " and spawn. They will rise several times before they actually spawn. In addition to the chasing behavior they both will poke their noses out of the rock work to check out the activity in the room several times. If there is too much movement outside the immediate tank front they will dart back into the rock work and the chase will continue in the various spaces behind the scenes. This behavior was typical for the first month.

They had stopped spawning for 10 days and I wanted to see if the behavior would pick up with extended light periods. Starting the 2nd week in April they started spawning only after I had turned the lights back on after "lights out" at 10pm. They spawned 10-20 minutes right after the lights came back on. Since then the spawns have begun to occur later at 11:30pm.

The egg counts are low only 50-100 eggs per spawn. The spawning was occurring every 3-5 days with 1 or 2 occurrances of spawning 2 nights in a row. Starting this week they have spawned each night for 3 nights in a row. They have settled on 1 location of the rockwork to start their spawning behavior and rise to spawn.

They sorted out their prefefence of spawning location to the center of the tank. The fertilty of the eggs have always been 90% or better. Thus dispelling the height requirement for me previously noted for fertilization by others. The actual spawn rise is as stated before only 3-5".

I initially started to hatch the eggs in a cake pan outside the tank. I did this to document the process with photos and notes. The intial spawns would develop to the pro-larval stage but I couldn't see any development past that.

I next made a flaoting plastic container with 1/2" x 3 1/2" 120 micron windows on opposite sides to hatch them in the tank. This got them past the pro-larval stage but not past 2 days Post Hatch (further to be referred to as PH).

The next thing I did was to create a closed loop drip system using a 40 gph powerhead I hade on hand, 1/2" pvc and 1/4" 90 degree elbows and 1/4" ball valves for drip irrigation systems I got at HD. I drilled 6 holes in the pvc and inserted the 1/4" elbows. I next attached airline hose to an elbow and using a 1/4" ball valve at the end of the hose controlled the rate of tank water flowing into the floating container to several dripps per minute. This method got me to 72hrs PH and 2 larval fish complete with stomach, eyes (pigmented) and stomach.

I then made a 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 5" acrylic box with two "windows" of 120 micron mesh 1" x 4" right below the faom float. So far this method has resulted in 3 larval fish at 120 hrs PH.

Notes on the Pro-larval and larval fish behavior:

Upon hatching there is a noticable black line from head to tail. During the next 24hrs the black becomes more scattered over the body and the larval shape starts to form. Next the black forms into small areas on the body making sighting the larval fish very difficult. The pro-larval fish is sensitive to vibrations and intense light/shadows after 24 hrs PH and will dart around if exposed to either. I assume this is a predator evasion response. It also shows that there is some possible "sight" mechanisum after 24hrs PH. After 48hrs the eyes, scales and stomach are visible under magnification of 220x's but the eyes are unpigmented. After 72 hrs PH the eyes are fully pigmented and the pectoral fins and mouth are visible.

Size:
1 hr PH the pro-larva is 2mm in lenght.
24 hrs PH 2.25 mm approx.
48 hrs PH 2.5 mm approx.
72 hrs PH 3 mm approx. The mouth is approx 100-150 microns.

I am currently working with the past 3 spawns and the first foods. Photos to follow in my next posts.