Flame angels to spawning - Observations

DamianOz

New member
As the lighting sets for the night, often my flame angels will display their courtship behaviour, as seen in the video

This display will go on for an hour or so while the light fades, shortly before dark they will spawn, then immediately take off into hiding for the night.

Looking up into the water column I can see eggs float in the water column, my Bangai Cardinals and Chromis dart around having a feed on them.

Now the interesting finding, I am almost certain I can trigger them to spawn. When ever I dose KZ coral snow, 1.5 hours before lights out, they start mating immediately.
At first I thought it may be co incidental, having now noted this for near 2 months, some weeks dosing 4 days in a row, other weeks 2 or 3 times a week at random, I notice the immediate mating show. Over the past 3 days I watched right to the end to confirm their actually spawning, its hard to see the eggs, but obvious when seeing the other fish feed. Anyway, I feel its time to share..

https://www.facebook.com/DamiansReef/posts/1046236918739226
 
I had that with C. argi and other fish and there is really nothing else than good feeding required so the female can produce eggs.
The real trigger is the light. They will always spawn minutes if not seconds before the lights go out so that other fish have no time to go after their eggs.
The same goes for mandarins, sixline wrasses, ... pretty much all free spawning fish.
 
The pair I had previously during my 1st breeding trial spawned a few minutes prior to lights out. At the time my lights were either on or off. This current spawning trial I've included some 420nm lights (4) as moon lights and this new pair spawn a few minutes to 20 minutes after the main lights go out.

Quality food is essential for the hatch out of the egg, survival of the pro larvae and development into the larval fish.
 
I have three Flame angels in my tank, one male and two females. They spawn almost every night. Almost always both of the females would spawned. You should see my male trying to court both females at the same time. He always successful at getting one then the other female to spawn right after the other.

My tank is a large tank with no mechanical filter. I feed my tank a lot. There are pods all over the rocks and the glass. The Flame Angels eat a lot of food I feed the tank, but they also pick all the pods they want on the rocks.
 
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