How to Make Flame Angelfish Pairs

Fill the biological filter compartment of a canister filter with bio balls on which beneficial bacteria can grow. These bacteria cultures convert the metabolic waste of the fish. Place a pouch of activated carbon into the chemical filter compartment, to remove dissolved toxins from your water and put a handful of filter floss into the mechanical filter compartment to trap dirt and detritus.

Adjust the thermostat on your aquarium heater to between 77 and 82 degrees F and place it in the aquarium.

Add natural sea water or make synthetic sea water, by mixing a high quality marine salt with water, to a specific gravity of 1.025. Use a hydrometer to confirm this reading.

Select two flame angelfish of different sizes from your aquatic dealer. The larger the size difference, the better the chance that you will have both a male and female fish. This is the most successful way of obtaining a pair of flame angelfish. Males are larger than females of a similar age.

Examine the soft anal and dorsal fins on both fish. The male often has a darker blue on these two fins and both fins are slightly pointed, when compared to the rounded edges on the fins of the female.

Place the two in your aquarium at the same time.

Condition the fish by feeding live foods such as brine shrimp and a vitamin-enriched commercial angelfish diet.

Watch the couple closely just prior to ̶0;lights out.̶1; It is at this time that the majority of dwarf angelfish choose to spawn. If you have been successful in forming a true pair, the smaller female will rise in the water, followed closely by the male fish.

Observe the behavior of the angelfish during this time, as the male fish bumps the abdomen of this mate if the two are paired and preparing to spawn. The male will change position to align his genital opening with that of the female, if actual spawning is taking place.