Look what's happening in my tank today!
I thought it was coming- for the past few days I've seen them hanging out in this corner of the tank; last night I saw their genital papillae were extended, and the female was very assiduously cleaning this anubias leaf. The male seemed interested in cleaning the heater as well- but she never helped him there and once I saw her go up alongside him and shake herself, pelvic fins extended like a threat. He came back and helped her clean the anubias leaf, but more often was chasing tetras away from the area. By morning they had definitely drawn a line in the tank: angelfish have the left third, tetras get to use the right two-thirds of the space:
M. Beautiful is the female:
I took lots of pictures of them spawning. Female:
Male:
Sometimes he would go across the leaf at a different angle than she did. Other times he'd start to follow her pass before she was done!
She missed a few times- kuhlis were below looking for dropped eggs. And some stuck on the edge of a nearby leaf- the first time it happened she stared at it a long time, tried to bite it off, then didn't pay attention to those off to the side. Skye made a few short passes to fertilize those eggs too.
When they started, the eggs were more or less evenly spaced-
but when she ran out of room, the female didn't move to another nearby leaf, instead kept making passes over the same spot again and again. So there are a lot of eggs on top of other ones. I don't know if that makes a difference to their hatching?
And why should it matter, ha, since I keep saying I don't have plans to raise baby angelfish. I will watch excitedly for developments regardless.
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