Triggering Angel Spawn

[Barracuda]

Hi

As some may/may not know I currently have one breeding pair in the own 2ft in which I am currently raising the fry in a seperate. This pair used to spawn regularly - once every 2 weeks, about 4 or 5 times now (without much success in keeping the fry). However, a month ago i decided i would take the pair and their newborn fry out of the main tank and put into their own 2ft. This worked successfully, as the fry survived and the parents still looked after them. After a week or so with the parents, and a noticeable die off, i decided i would seperate the fry into their own tank and leave the parents by themselves to hopefully spawn again.

This is now just over a month ago, and the parents havent spawned again since. I am trying to figure out how to trigger a spawn - when they first did it in the main tank it was purely out of suprise.

Below is a list of water parameters:

ph = 6.4 (same as main tank)

amm = 0

n/ite = 0

n/ate = 20'ish

Is this correct? I heard angels need lower ph - I have been using Seachem Discus Buffer (supposedly makes water soft as well) + Neutral regulator - the same as I use in main tank.

The 2ft is bare bottom, has a background, some floating plants, a large plastic plant, breeding cone (they used it last time) 1 large mature sponge filter, 1 500l/h internal filter

Small water changes every day/every second day.

Feeding tetra colour bits as usual.

Cant think of much that I have changed, apart from the environment. I would have thought that they would have been settled enough by now to spawn again.

Can you recommend anything else that I do to trigger the spawn? Would love more fry (considering most of the previous spawn have died)

Thanks in advance

[mcloughlin2]

You need to give them more time to settle down. Cut back on daily/every other day water changes as this is unneccesary and would be causing undue stress. Perform a water change once or twice a week for the next couple of weeks and see how you go. If nothing happens don't do a water change for 2 weeks, wait til you get a low pressure system coming on and do a 50% water change.

[Barracuda]

Thanks

The reason I do the small daily water changes is to suck up all the poo, since it is only a bare bottom and the internal doesnt seem to be sucking up everything.

Anyway today i noticed them cleaning the cone (finally! so hopefully they will spawn soon. I also removed the internal, so that the eggs/fry wont get sucked in (if they do get to that stage). That means i will only have a sponge filter inside, so more poo will accumalate at the bottom. Is is still ok to do the water change weekly?

Thanks