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Angelfish problems


BenA
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Good day to you all.

Have a problem of my own creation.

Been to a shop and saw 7 beautiful large fish, they were not cheap, but they had amazing blue reflections, I could not resist and bought 3 of them and housed them in my 10gl quarantine tank together with 2 Bosmani rainbows and some Celebes, 3 weeks later X1 Bosmani and 2 Celebes were transferred to the big tank in the sky and the remaining fish to the 100gl tank leaving the 3 Angels behind, 2 decided to pair and started to intimidate the other fish so to solve the problem I bought a storage box of 15gl for this poor fella. Then, I made another mistake, I saw and got another large ginger (not gold or red, ginger) angel brought it home and housed in the storage box with the other one. It didn't take long for "Ginger" to take control of the box so on Sat. I am going to split the box. My plan is to move the angels into the 100gl tank but this will take another 6 weeks or so as I am waiting for a 50gl tank which will house all the small fish that will be removed from the 100gl. 

So the question after this long story. Do I have a chance to have the 4 together or is better to take them back to the shop?

Thanks

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A lot depends on the sex. The pair will be less hostile after breeding but they will still likely reject the other two - but not nec chase them away. However if the other two are males they might gang up on the male of your pair to steal the female. If the other two are m/f they will likely pair and you will have two pairs. In all honestly i suggest you just keep the pair and donate the other two. I have 8 angels in my 120 but it was a complicated path that led me to the 8 (5 are off springs of a pair) and i've had to remove 3 (yea i Had 11) due to the dynamics. The current dynamics are semi-stable but there is still more fighting than i would like. I have 3 distinct pairs (with one pair perm. banished to the back of the tank) and 2 males that sometime try to steal a female but they have mostly settled down. I'm hopeful these dynamics will be stable until i move next year and can put them in a 450 but if not i might have to remove the 1 or both unpaired males.

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It can be done, especially if the 100 gallon is a six foot tank and you have plenty of plants and/ or wood to make sight line blocks and hiding spots. The pair will probably get a little aggressive towards the other two when they decide to spawn, but as long as there is plenty of room for them to escape to they will be fine. If you want to calm down the aggressiveness when they spawn, pull the eggs out once they lay, because they won't have anything to defend if the eggs are gone. 

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This is my 120 and while it might work i sincerely doubt it. The point in showing you this picture is that this is a densely planted tank and when the boss female decides you are no longer welcomed it really means you are no longer welcomed. Now having said that as I noted above it might work but it depends more on the sexes and individual fish personalities and you might have to cycle through a few fishes to eventually get 4 that will tolerate each other.

 

120.jpg

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Wow, that is a beautiful tank! Eight angels in your tank, plus the 4 new angels would be 12. I have 13 angels in a 6-foot long 120 gallon tank. They spar regularly for rank in the pecking order, but never seem to really hurt each other. One pair laid some eggs twice, but my angels are all young, and most are less than a year old. My experience has been that aggressiveness waxes and wanes, but there are enough fish in the tank so that the aggression is not focused on any particular fish. I think the aggression would be worse when there is an aggressive pair and only one other fish to beat up on, as it was in your quarantine tank. As pointed out above, lots of plants and other sight barriers help, as long the plants are not so dense that the fish cannot comfortably use the space.

 

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Thank you all, very helpful.

My 100gl tank is 140cm (~4.25') long and is not densely planted, I left lots of open space for the fish to swim, although about a month old the photo will give you an idea. However, all of this is now theory because this morning I had to rescue the under dog. He was attacked and one of his eyes got damaged so now it is cloudy. I got another container, rushed and bought heater, sponge filter and medication and moved the poor guy into his new home. When Ginger sees the other fish through the sides he gets aggressive and attacks the container so I covered the side with a towel. I guess that one of them will have to go, which one I don't know yet which one. My problem now is what do I do with the"Melanotaenia Sahulensis" that arrive on Sunday, can't put them with the couple, is Ginger safe? Is the injured fish and the medication safe? God knows.

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4 hours ago, HH Morant said:

Wow, that is a beautiful tank! Eight angels in your tank, plus the 4 new angels would be 12. I have 13 angels in a 6-foot long 120 gallon tank. They spar regularly for rank in the pecking order, but never seem to really hurt each other. One pair laid some eggs twice, but my angels are all young, and most are less than a year old. My experience has been that aggressiveness waxes and wanes, but there are enough fish in the tank so that the aggression is not focused on any particular fish. I think the aggression would be worse when there is an aggressive pair and only one other fish to beat up on, as it was in your quarantine tank. As pointed out above, lots of plants and other sight barriers help, as long the plants are not so dense that the fish cannot comfortably use the space.

 

You crossed up tank. I had 11 and now i'm down to 8 because i had to adjust the dynamics to prevent deaths. My dynamics are very different - I started with 4 but one was chased out of the tank and that left 3 (2 f and 1 m). The 2 f sort of worked because what happened is f1 chased out m1 and decided she wanted m2. f2 objected but m1 (the platinum in the above picture) was a lot stronger than f2. f1 and m2 bred and i raised the fry and put 10 in the tank. One died from the dizzies and then when they matured i had to remove 3 (not at the same time). Two very large gold males decided m2 had to go (their dad) and ganged up on him - they went to shop. Anyway I now have 3 distinct pairs and they keep apart most of the time - the front pair (f1 and m2) and the gold pairs (two off springs) will mix and generally get along but there is a pair of blacks (f2 and an off spring male) that do not get along at all with f1 and m2 and they mostly have to stay in the back part of the tank and have to sneak up front during feeding time. The other 2 are floaters off springs - they are mostly tolerated but now and then they will pick on m2.

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m1 as an extremely nice platinum male but when f1 decided to reject him - she was basically going to kill him so i put him in a 29 for a while - and tried to re-add him a couple of times over 4 months but she would instantly go after him so reluctantly i had to give him to the pet shop (a 29 is too small for a large adult male). f1 m1 f2 m2 were raised from dime size - i actually had 4 platinum and 4 blacks that i put in a pair of 29s and when pairs formed i put the 2 pairs in the 120 hence f1 decided to steal m2.

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