Angelfish Aggression

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Mr. FishMan

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 18, 2013
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I've had 2 Cobalt Blue Angelfish in a 55 gallon tank for almost 5 months now and about a week or two ago I added a third, All Black Angel. I've been keeping the newest one in a breeding basket until he gets a little bigger, but ever since I got him one of the Cobalts has been displaying a lot of aggression towards the other. He wont let the other Angel come out of hiding and the one that is hiding is losing color and its fins are all torn. I've been gone for 3 days and after getting back home and seeing this I'm really worried. What should I do? I've taken the All Black out of the basket and put the aggressor in, but he's really cramped and I dont want to keep him in there for long. I also can't afford to set up a new tank right now.. What I dont understand is how everything was fine and then all of a sudden.. Please help
 
ok the best thing to do is totally re arrange the tank at night when its dark . put the angels all in a bucket while doing this with a air pump and a heater if possible. they will be ok for a couple hours. after re arranging the tank leave the light off then in a couple hours put the fish back in and leave light off till morning. make sure theres plenty of tall plants cause they feel more secure that way. it could be that you have 2 male and one female and they will compete for dominance over the female. i have 10 breeding pairs and 2 community 55 gallon angel tanks so there will be some bickering between them. its our job to calm the situation just like kids lol. pm me if i can help any further
 
ok the best thing to do is totally re arrange the tank at night when its dark . put the angels all in a bucket while doing this with a air pump and a heater if possible. they will be ok for a couple hours. after re arranging the tank leave the light off then in a couple hours put the fish back in and leave light off till morning. make sure theres plenty of tall plants cause they feel more secure that way. it could be that you have 2 male and one female and they will compete for dominance over the female. i have 10 breeding pairs and 2 community 55 gallon angel tanks so there will be some bickering between them. its our job to calm the situation just like kids lol. pm me if i can help any further

Funny! I just sent you a private message asking if you could help this OP!
Thanks Bob. My angels are thriving and the bigger they get, the more I think I have 2 females so I won't have this type of problem....
 
ok the best thing to do is totally re arrange the tank at night when its dark . put the angels all in a bucket while doing this with a air pump and a heater if possible. they will be ok for a couple hours. after re arranging the tank leave the light off then in a couple hours put the fish back in and leave light off till morning. make sure theres plenty of tall plants cause they feel more secure that way. it could be that you have 2 male and one female and they will compete for dominance over the female. i have 10 breeding pairs and 2 community 55 gallon angel tanks so there will be some bickering between them. its our job to calm the situation just like kids lol. pm me if i can help any further

I've had a very similar problem with severums and I actually spent over a week and $100 rearranging and adding plants to reduce territorial disputes and it did not work at all. I have a couple tall plants but not many so I might go ahead and add a few more.. I know for fact that the two Cobalts are male and female, but they never did pair up and even if they did It wouldn't make sense as to why the male would have turned on his mate and not on the new Angelfish. I thought maybe they were setting up a new pecking order but by the way the female has been acting lately tells me otherwise. I don't understand..
 
Sad news.. My Angelfish didnt make it.. Ever since my other Angelfish turned on her, she stopped eating and would stay near the top of the tank looking really depressed. I quarantined her a few days ago, but even in her own tank my poor Angel still wasnt eating and was still staying at the top of the tank. I checked on her last night before I went to bed and she was still acting "depressed." This morning when I woke up, she was dead.. My question is, Is it possible for Angelfish to get so depressed, they end up starving themselves? And would it be a bad idea to add a new Angelfish to my main tank? I really don't want the same thing to happen again. Thanks for your input..
 
no u would be fine just make sure its the oppisite sex as the one u have now unless u dont want eggs. i no u think itr sounds like depression but im thinking it had a internal bacteria wich is why the other one was picking on it cause it was sick and the hanging at the top is another signe that makes me think this
 
Just because you have a male and female angels doesn't mean they will pair. I've kept angels since the 70's and have found it just depends on the temperaments of the angels involved. Right now the large angel has claimed the tank as it's territory. Just adding in the smaller angel IMO is going to cause the large one to start picking at it. You obviously know about rearranging the tank but you could try removing the big angel, rearranging the tank, adding the little angel then reintroducing the larger one. This could trick him into thinking he's in a new tank that he has no established territory lowering his aggression level. But you would still have to monitor him.

I only keep 1 220g angel tank anymore, and my current tank which is 100% planted started with 14 angels. As they matured there were two that became large dominant ill tempered males. There was always very aggressive bickering. I finally rehomed them both and since then the remaining 12 co-exist with well.

So you have a couple choices... you could rehome the larger aggressive one and add a couple small ones the same size and hope they do well together as they mature or keep one of the of the two you have now having only 1 angel in your tank or try rearranging and see if they can co-exist.
 
no u would be fine just make sure its the oppisite sex as the one u have now unless u dont want eggs. i no u think itr sounds like depression but im thinking it had a internal bacteria wich is why the other one was picking on it cause it was sick and the hanging at the top is another signe that makes me think this

Ok, Will do. And hmm. That is a possibility. The only thing is, before the Angelfish started getting attacked she was completely healthy. It wasn't until 2-3 days after I saw the first attack, that she starting acting different. At first she would retreat into one of the hollow logs I have in my tank or behind some tall plants near one of the bottom corners and would still come out to eat, but the more aggressive the other one got, the less active she became and the less she tried to retreat.. If it was a bacterial infection, for future reference, How could she have gotten it, and how could I have treated it? And why dont any of the Other angels have it? Thanks for your help, Bob, its much appreciated..
 
The stress caused by the other angel is enough to lower the immune system which can open a fish up to disease or illness.
 
Just because you have a male and female angels doesn't mean they will pair. I've kept angels since the 70's and have found it just depends on the temperaments of the angels involved. Right now the large angel has claimed the tank as it's territory. Just adding in the smaller angel IMO is going to cause the large one to start picking at it. You obviously know about rearranging the tank but you could try removing the big angel, rearranging the tank, adding the little angel then reintroducing the larger one. This could trick him into thinking he's in a new tank that he has no established territory lowering his aggression level. But you would still have to monitor him.

I only keep 1 220g angel tank anymore, and my current tank which is 100% planted started with 14 angels. As they matured there were two that became large dominant ill tempered males. There was always very aggressive bickering. I finally rehomed them both and since then the remaining 12 co-exist with well.

So you have a couple choices... you could rehome the larger aggressive one and add a couple small ones the same size and hope they do well together as they mature or keep one of the of the two you have now having only 1 angel in your tank or try rearranging and see if they can co-exist.

I know that just because they are male and female doesn't mean they'll pair. I never said they were a pair.. and Actually the largest Angel, was the one that was being picked on. I have the aggressor in "Jail" (a breeding basket) lol so he doesn't pick on the little guy and I put him up for sale on CL earlier this morning.. I probably wont get any more Angels until after he's gone but when I do, ill be sure they are all dime-nickel size. Thanks for your input.
 
The stress caused by the other angel is enough to lower the immune system which can open a fish up to disease or illness.

That makes perfect sense.. I wish I would've quarantined sooner.. Gah, it makes me feel like a bad parent :(
 
Sad news.. My Angelfish didnt make it.. Ever since my other Angelfish turned on her, she stopped eating and would stay near the top of the tank looking really depressed. I quarantined her a few days ago, but even in her own tank my poor Angel still wasnt eating and was still staying at the top of the tank. I checked on her last night before I went to bed and she was still acting "depressed." This morning when I woke up, she was dead.. My question is, Is it possible for Angelfish to get so depressed, they end up starving themselves? And would it be a bad idea to add a new Angelfish to my main tank? I really don't want the same thing to happen again. Thanks for your input..

I'm sorry to hear that! :( angels are such a joy to have around and bring so much life to a tank! :(
A suggestion I have is to never have an odd amount of angelfish in a tank. They will "pair" (sexually or not) and the oddball will get nipped, left out, and stressed to death.
Another thing that I haven't heard from anyone else but in my own experience is when you have angelfish currently and add more, the previous ones become territorial.

I've had 4 angels all bought from the same time, and I just recently added to more. The four grouped together and left the two out and picked at them and the four were pretty nippy. Never aggressively did much, just kinda did a little warning chase for a split second. After awhile everyone adjusted but while there were knew angels, even the original four kinda picked on each other a bit. I think it's a territorial thing. It's just from experience though.

Good luck with angels in the future.

It might help to add angels of the same size as your original. I had previous problems with that before as well.
 
I'm sorry to hear that! :( angels are such a joy to have around and bring so much life to a tank! :(
A suggestion I have is to never have an odd amount of angelfish in a tank. They will "pair" (sexually or not) and the oddball will get nipped, left out, and stressed to death.
Another thing that I haven't heard from anyone else but in my own experience is when you have angelfish currently and add more, the previous ones become territorial.

I've had 4 angels all bought from the same time, and I just recently added to more. The four grouped together and left the two out and picked at them and the four were pretty nippy. Never aggressively did much, just kinda did a little warning chase for a split second. After awhile everyone adjusted but while there were knew angels, even the original four kinda picked on each other a bit. I think it's a territorial thing. It's just from experience though.

Good luck with angels in the future.

It might help to add angels of the same size as your original. I had previous problems with that before as well.

Hey AngelFishGirl, thank you for your reply. I guess I thought they would be fine since the original Angelfish hadn't paired yet and I assumed adding a dime sized Angel would be to young to pair up.. I guess I was wrong because the little guy has been hanging out right next to the bully that's in jail. So Ill be sure not to add any more Angels. I'm probably going to sell the bully on CL and start over with some more dime sized Angels after he's gone..
 
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