Angelfish Care: what to feed angel fish and how to breed angelfish

Section 1:

12 things I wish I had known years ago about keeping angelfish!

1.    Live tubifex worms:

Live tubifex worms may be the best food for young angelfish. They might be the best food for adult angelfish, also. A scientific study showed a 41% higher growth rate in young angelfish after 90 days on tubifex worms, than the next best food and the control food. One other common live food did very poorly in the study.

2.    Baby brine shrimp:

Don’t feed brine shrimp naupili to newly hatched angelfish. The nauplii are often too large for the young angelfish to fit in their mouths or swallow. There are much better food sources available.

3.    Water PH 6.8 or less: 

Angelfish eggs and newly hatched angelfish are much more likely to survive and thrive in a water pH of 6.8% (or lower). Common tap water pH levels, which are often much higher than a pH of 7, had mortality rates as high as 98%.

Angelfish mating pairs are less likely to eat their eggs if the water PH is 6.8 or lower. Another factor to consider is light level.

4.    Angelfish Illnesses:

Many angelfish illnesses can be cured using massive daily water changes and then keeping the aquarium spotlessly clean. That said, nearly all aquarium fish and aquariums are infected with fish TB. UV lights might fix a major outbreak of fish TB.

6.    Size:

They grow to be about 6 inches, but can grow larger under prime conditions.

7.    Lifespan:

Angelfish will live 7 to 10 years

8.    Three Species:

There are three different species of angelfish. 

9.    Not skittish:

Angelfish in aquariums are not at all afraid of people.

10.    Superb actors:

They constantly beg for food. The way they behave, you could swear they had never been fed. 

12.    Breeding age:

Angelfish are mature enough to breed when they are 6 to 12 months old.

Section 2

Feeding Angelfish (Giant Angelfish? Maybe)

http://keralamarinelife.in/Journals/Vol5-12/9%20Jayalekshmi%20et%20al.pdf

A scientific study at the University of Kerala (India) found young angelfish grow best when they were fed a diet of live Tubifex worms.

The study used a formulated control food (rice flour, groundnut oil cake, tapioca powder and rice bran), live bloodworms, live tubifex worms and live, common red worms.

The angelfish in this study were 10 to 15 days old. They were fed 5% of the total body weight of the total fish weight in the tank, twice daily. They could eat as much as they could in two hours, and then the leftover food was removed.

The tables below are provided courtesy of Jayalekshmi, J.N., Kurian Mathew Abraham and

Sobhanakumar, K. and Department of Aquatic Biology & Fisheries, University of Kerala

The compostion of the foods fed to the angelfish in this study are as follows:

Food type fed vs weight gain for the angelfish in this study:

 As far as feeding angelfish, what can be deduced from this study? 

*   In looking at the differences in food composition, what jumps out at me is that the tubifex worms have about half the fat as the blood worms. The ash amount of the tubifex was 37% less than the blood worms. Also the moisture was 18% higher in the tubifex worms vs the blood worms.

*   Obviously live tubifex worms are a great food for angelfish. The worst food in this study was the bloodworms. The scientist who did this research suggested that blood worms are difficult to digest. 

*   We can use this study as a guide to deciding what food to feed angelfish for maximum growth. Fish foods that are low in fats and high in moisture might be the best foods. In looking at the fish foods I have in my home, TetraMin flake food doesn’t fit this ideal. API tropical flake food comes closer with 5% fat (min).  

*   My conclusion is feed your angelfish live foods, or frozen live foods, but not bloodworms. Look at the package for fat content (it should be around 5%) and moisture content above 40%.

On this site: DIY – How To Grow Your Own (Gross) Live Foods For Your Freshwater Fish (opens in a new tab)

Section 3

Water conditions angelfish need 

If you know anything about keeping South American tropical fish, you already know that their aquarium water should be 78 degrees F. The pH should be neutral (7.0 or lower).

The question I would ask at this point is why are these two numbers always recommended?

The answer lies in the Amazon River Basin weather patterns. 

The Amazon River Basin is a tropical forest area on and near the equator. It covers an area of 2,400,000 square miles.The size and location allows the Amazon River Basin to create its own weather.

Water temperature in the Amazon River Basin: A process called convective uplift actually regulates the temperature of the land and water. It is a simple process in which the sun warms the ground. Because of this warming, heat and water vapor rise. As the warm air hits high cooler air, clouds form and rain falls. This is a continual cyclical process that keeps the Amazon Basin temperatures down to 73 degrees F to 83 degrees F. 
https://study.com/academy/lesson/causes-of-precipitation-convection-orographic-uplift-frontal-uplift.html

pH of most of the waters found flowing in the Amazon River Basin: Green plants cover every square inch of the Amazon Basin. It rains in nearly every area, every day. In fact, on average, any area in the Basin receives 91 inches of rain per year. Rain water doesn’t have many if any minerals or hardness. It has a neutral pH as it lands 

Next, as plants die, often the plant debris goes into the rivers and streams. There is so much plant debris it is rare to see any clear body of water. This debris creates blackwater which is very low in PH. This is a similar process to adding fresh driftwood to your aquarium. The wood will turn the water a tea color and probably lower the pH slightly. (Here is more information on my site about tropical plants – link will open in a new window)

Admittedly, this is an extremely simplified description of why the pH is low in the Amazon Basin. Since most of the water is pH 7 or lower in that area, most South American aquarium fish would prefer water that is low in PH level.

You can learn more about the waters of the Amazon Basin here: https://php.radford.edu/~swoodwar/biomes/?page_id=2052 and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_biome and last: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxisol

Section 4 – Breeding Angelfish

Breeding of angelfish should be fairly straightforward, but it’s not. I’ve had angelfish breed in my aquariums dozens of times. In every case, the parents have eaten the eggs. This happens to everyone, except the owners of wild type angelfish. Apparently, they don’t have problems with their fish eating the eggs the breeding pairs have laid. 

Photo above: Angelfish pair caring for eggs.  Tap picture for larger high-res image.

I don’t have a way to verify this, but I’ve read that inbreeding of angelfish has caused a reduction of their natural parenting skills. I’ve also read this same comment in this scientific study on breeding angelfish: https://www.scielo.br/j/ni/a/wxW7HWMjVrwshnFBKqkvQ7g/?format=pdf 

Here are a few very helpful facts about breeding angelfish. I found this information in the study listed above.

1.  Don’t feed baby brine shrimp to angelfish fry. Feeding brine shrimp nauplii to newly hatched angelfish results in an angelfish mortality rate of 8%. If the newly hatched angelfish are fed protozoans and rotifers, those angelfish have a much lower 3% mortality rate. The reason for this is how large the brine shrimp nauplii are compared to the size of newly hatched angelfish. Some of the young angelfish literally couldn’t open their mouths wide enough to swallow the brine shrimp nauplii.

2.  Breed and raise angelfish in soft water. In the study mentioned here, they reared angelfish in water with a pH of 6.2 and 8.2. Of the newly hatched angelfish, reared in the water that was 8.2 pH, 98% of them died. Most of the angelfish in soft water lived. A few soft water angels were born with birth defects and died because of this.

Angelfish parents were more likely to care for eggs if the tank they were in had a pH of 6.8 (or lower?). Interesting fact: angelfish can survive in water that has a 3.8 pH.
 

3.Angelfish pairs that were stressed nearly always ate their eggs. The stress was usually caused by having to defend the eggs against tank mates (when raising angelfish using the mating pair, don’t have any other fish in the aquarium). Also, if the adults have to leave the nesting area for an extended time to chase away other fish, the adult angelfish will “forget” they laid the eggs and will eat them.

Another stress factor is aquarium water that has a pH higher than 7.0.

Reduce the stress and it is more likely that your mated pair will care of the eggs and their young. 

When the fry become free swimming, it is possible that the parents will “forget” the fry are theirs and eat the fry.

A conclusion I’ve made based on what I’ve read and experienced. If I had a breeding pair of angels and I wanted them to raise babies, my breeding tank would be heavily planted. I would add peat moss, and the aquarium would be filled with purified water. There would be no other fish in the breeding tank. The lights would be kept low because the streams and rivers in the Amazon basin are usually filled with debris, making the water dark.

This would probably be the perfect setup to get angelfish parents to breed and raise the fry themselves.

Last thought on this perfect set up. Remove the parents when the fry become free swimming. 

Section 5

Angelfish illnesses and how to treat the diseases

Super Important: Do you really (really?) want healthy fish in your aquarium?

This is what I do and it really works. No ifs, ands or buts.

I (the author of the article) spent a year experimenting on how to keep freshwater aquarium fish healthy and alive. I’ve learned a lot and have had excellent results. Do the following and your fish won’t become ill. You’ll say “overkill” but I know what has worked. 

1. Weekly 100% water changes. My (community well) water doesn’t have nitrates in it. I heavily treat the water with API Stess Coat +.

2. I added a sump. It was a pain to start/set up but now I wouldn’t have an aquarium without one. One advantage: my sump setup super-oxygenates the water.

3. Get rid of most or all of the gravel. I know now that parasites and pathogen live in and grow in gravel.

4. I have two large Fluval cannister filters on my 50 gallon aquarium which are constantly running. I super clean the water.

5.  I have two expensive UV sterilizers hooked up to the output of the cannister filters. UV sterilizers are supidly expensive ($200 each as of this writing mainly because there is only one company that makes high-quality UV sterilizers). UV sterilizers are also fickle meaning the bulbs burn out much faster than the UV company says. They are supposed to last a year but I’m lucky to get five months out of them. Replacement cost for a bulb is $50. 

6. I feed my fish four times a day. I want fat bellies on all the fish. 

Doing these six items has allowed me to overstock my tank with 14 zebra danios, 5 tiger barbs, a female betta, a bristle nose pleco and some guppies. Everyone is fat, happy and healthy. 

Fish Diseases and suggested cures:

Here are the most common angelfish diseases and the suggested treatments as suggested by the article below and the article author: https://www.academia.edu/699360/A_ZFishDiseases

Fish, equipment and supplies mentioned in this article and where to buy: