Angel Behavior

[Mark Z.]

So, I bought a new angel today and one of my old angels is bullying him.
 
I have a 48-gallon aquarium with, among other fish, two angels; a large black one and a slightly smaller marble one. They get along just fine.
 
Today, I bought a beautiful silver veil angel a little smaller than the other two. When I got home, he colored up and actually has a blue tint! Very unique.
 
The marble angel began bullying the silver veil to the point where I removed the marble angel to my 10-gallon hospital tank for the night.
 
I have always wanted to have 5-6 angels in a tank together. I think they are so elegant. But, how do you prevent the bullying? Will this "time out" for the marble angel accomplish anything, or will he continue to bully the silver veil if I return him to the big aquarium? I have seen videos of angel aquariums and have always wanted to have more than two, but how do they do it?
 
I have never had more than three angels at one time in the past. Never had any problems. Several have even bred, but I am not interested in breeding any, I would just like to have everybody get along.
 
I am in the process of setting up a 55-gallon, but I need to run an electric line, build a stand and cycle the tank, so I am at least a month away. 
 
I imagine the answer is that some angels get along and some don't and I just have to separate the ones that don't. I'm just wondering if there is any other answer.
 
Thanks,
Mark

 

[jag51186]

You've touched on a difficult topic, I don't keep angels myself, but I have seen it discussed on this forum fairly frequently. My understanding for angels is basically that you have three options for keeping them in a tank, 1 individual, a mated pair, or 6+ in a shoal. They are naturally shoaling fish, but have a pretty intense hierarchy as you are seeing. The difficulty lies in the fact that, if you have 6+ angels in your tank, and two of them pair up as mates, they will then decide that the rest are imposing on their space, and the bullying will commence...and only worsen if they spawn. Most people, from my understanding, get a shoal of angels with the intention of removing pairs as they form. Otherwise, you just have to accept the bullying. Your best bet if you want a group would be to get your tank upgrade finished, and add all of them at once so they can figure out the hierarchy as a group rather than the new guy always taking the brunt of the assault.
 
Hope this helps, good luck.

 

[Akasha72]

Hello Mark. I hope to be able to answer all your questions. I have a pair of angels myself but I began with 4 - all added seperately when young and I hit troubles too.
 
So you ask how others manage to keep several together and the answer is that they add them all at once to a new aquarium as babies. There will always be the issue of bullying - usually because there are too many males fighting over a female that they want to pair with - and in these circumstances one angel usually has to be re-homed.
 
Angelfish are territorial - some more than others. Some angels see the whole of the tank as their territory and will fight any other angel to the death if it enters in. Some will just bully and chase and nothing more. It sounds like yours isn't too territorial and is just warning the new comer who's the boss. The existing pair you had will have sorted this out, perhaps the other angels is happy to allow the 'bully' to be the boss. By adding a new comer the 'bully' now has to let the new arrival know who's in charge. 
There are ways to break up the territoral behaviour and this is something I'd advise that you do. Remove all the angels and keep them seperate, then re-arrange their tank - move decor around and have a mini re-scape. Once your done re-add all the angels at the same time and observe. 
 
If you don't want to re-arrange the tank keep the 'bully' seperated until your 55 gallon is ready and then try to add them back - if you are wanting more it's a good idea to add them at this time too.
 
Hope that helps
 
Akasha

 

[Byron]

I agree with the previous members.  If you want a shoal (group) of angels, consider five the minimum, and acquire them at the same time so they are all introduced to the tank together.  This generally works, though an individual "bully" will be a bully regardless, but fortunately this is the exception if all are introduced to each other in the same environment at the same time.  The other aspect of this is to have angelfish of basically the same age/size when you acquire this group.
 
If Akasha's suggestion doesn't work, and it may or may not, depending upon the individual fish, the best solution when the 55g is ready would be to re-home all three and acquire five at that time, together.  The unknown is how the existing three will react to a "new" environment; nothing may change, or it may worsen, or it may improve.
 
I have posted this video before, but it is apropos here, so I will attach it.  This is a large tank (not mine)--750 litres/200 gallons, 200 cm/6.5 feet length--with a group of 11 wild-caught Pterophyllum scalare, the original species from which the many varieties have been derived.  You will observe that the fish are continually exerting their place in the hierarchy, but it never comes to "physical blows" or severe stress because the shoal is large and the space is suitable.  I have observed this identical interaction in the huge floor-to-ceiling tank at the Vancouver Aquarium housing this species and a group of black ghost knifefish.  It is perfectly natural and normal...and the fish are thus un-stressed and healthy.
 
https/www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gXVgWLbZ-g
 
Byron.

 

[Mark Z.]

Thank you all for the advice!
 
Thanks for the video, Byron. I see how a large group disperses the bullying. 
 
I rarely see a group of nice-looking and healthy angels in any of my pet stores. The black one and the blue one were actually the only angels in the stores when I purchased them. I would have liked to have gotten more of them. The marble did have a few tankmates when I got him.
 
It's interesting, the marble would swim across the tank to bully the blue one, but the blue one didn't fight back at all, he just seemed to put up with it. He didn't even seem upset. I wonder, had I left the marble in, would he have eventually stopped after a while of showing the new guy who was boss? My fear was that he would stress the blue one out or kill him.
 
This is new to me. I've had many angels over the years, but usually only two, and they almost always turned out to be breeding pairs, which I did not really want because I don't have any way to take care of the babies. Never any bullies.
 
Thanks again for your advice!
Mark

 

[Akasha72]

as I said in my first post I had four angels but I made the mistake of buying them seperately because I didn't know any better. All were bought as 50p sized babies. The first to arrive was my smokey blushing female - she was alone in the tank for about 14 days before I added the smokey blushing male. She instantly started to bully him and then I learned about adding them in a group to disperse the bullying so I rushed out in a panic to see what else I could get. I managed to get a platiumum and a chocolate/koi cross - both of those turned out to be female too. 
They grew up together and the bullying from the first female calmed down. Then one day I saw the two smokey blushing rubbing up against each other and so I got all four sexed on the angelfish forum. A week or two later and the smokey blushings were lip locking and tail slapping and the platinum and choc/koi females were pushed aside.
When the smokey's bred for the first time I decided I would set them up a tank so they could be alone. I moved them in and the female laid at least 3 batches of eggs and the male just ate them so I decided to move them back to the main tank and give up. At the time the platinum and choc/koi were still in there and by now they were adults. Because they'd all lived together previously happily I presumed re-adding my smokies would be fine - how wrong was I!! 
The platinmum took serious offense. She had murder in mind. She actually pinned my smokey male in a corner and was fully intent on killing him. I had to net her to get her to calm down. I tried and tried to get her to calm down but in the end I had to ring my lfs in a panic and ask if they had room to take in two adult angelfish.
I had to give away the platinum and the choc/koi females and it broke my heart to see that platinum go. 
 
I've told you this story Mark so you can see what can go wrong. Angels can be funny fish and if they don't get along to begin with it can get better but it can also get worse to the point that an angel will commit murder 
 
I hope it works out for you though. I wasn't able to re-scape my tank in a short period and so I had to make the difficult decision. Hopefully you won't have to

ps - that video is lovely to watch. I've seen it a few times now but I never get fed up of it

 

[jag51186]

I love that video (especially the cories), but my question is. What did that guy do if he had them pair off...they all look to be fully grown adults, so I assume they would pair up at some point. Though, if they were wild-caught, I would guess he was hoping to breed the line??

 

[Akasha72]

my best guess would be that they are all female jag