Angelfish territorial issu

[CarissaT]

I had two angelfish for about 8 months and the larger kept fighting with the smaller one. Sometimes it would hide away but most of the time would stay out around the bigger one and have an occasional spat. But it’s been a couple months and hasn’t resolved itself so I decided to try adding another 3 angelfish to spread things out. Well now I have one angelfish terrorizing four. It was only two days ago that I got them so I am expecting some issues for a little while but how long should I wait to see if things settle down? And / or is there anything I can do? What if I take the aggressor out and put him in his own tank for a while? (I would have to buy a tank) Or if I made some kind of a trap so it could stay in the tank but not be able to get to the other fish?

 

[Guyb93]

What size is the tank your keeping them in and what other tank mates do they have ?
Angels do ok in groups normally and could just be a classic dominant cichlid behaviour, with there long fins and slow swim speed they are a natural target for nippy fish , have you managed to sex any of the angles ?

 

[CarissaT]

It’s a 65? Gallon tank I believe, 48” long and 18” high. The two original ones are adult and I believe male is the dominant one and female the other. The three new ones are young, one is slightly smaller than the smaller one I have and the other two are about half the size of the ones I have. They were the largest I could get at the lfs. There are a bunch of platies in there which the angels rarely bother with. The smaller of the original ones is also being territorial against the new ones, but not as much as the dominant one. I was fully expecting to have some issues, I just wonder how long I should let it continue. The largest of the new ones is out and around a bit until he gets chased off and goes into hiding for a while. The other two smaller ones are basically in hiding all the time.

 

[Guyb93]

It’s a 65? Gallon tank I believe, 48” long and 18” high. The two original ones are adult and I believe male is the dominant one and female the other. The three new ones are young, one is slightly smaller than the smaller one I have and the other two are about half the size of the ones I have. They were the largest I could get at the lfs. There are a bunch of platies in there which the angels rarely bother with. The smaller of the original ones is also being territorial against the new ones, but not as much as the dominant one. I was fully expecting to have some issues, I just wonder how long I should let it continue. The largest of the new ones is out and around a bit until he gets chased off and goes into hiding for a while. The other two smaller ones are basically in hiding all the time.

Is there any visual damage to the fish being bullied ? As long as there is no damage to the fish I would leave it as long as a month to correct , you could try moving the bully out for a few days rearrange the tank then reintroduce him but that could kickstart a whole new power struggle , some fish just don’t do well with others I had geos which like angles should be able to live in a group just fine , nope 1 killed all the others , just one of those things

 

[CarissaT]

The smaller fish do have some minor tears in their fins, nothing really major as of yet. The smallest one is hiding and won’t come out to eat but the other two are keeping their distance but not really hiding away as such. I read about how angelfish can get bored and I believe this, they seem like very intelligent fish. People are probably going to think I’m nuts but I’m trying an experiment, I put a string of sparkly beads in the tank and they both seem somewhat fixated on it or at least that seems to have calmed them down from actively chasing the other fish as much. I’m also playing YouTube videos on angelfish for them on a tablet next to the tank and at first they were both fixated, then they went to the other end of the tank and now one of the new angelfish is watching it The two original angelfish are having spats now too here and there so everyone is just in a very cranky mood. I wish I had one of those bubble treasure chests that open and shut because I think that would be a distraction too for them. Anyway for now I guess I have to wait it out and keep an eye on the most bullied in case I need to move it to a breeding trap if it’s really getting damaged. Changing around the tank would be a massive endeavor as it’s fully planted with rooting plants and I have driftwood half buried in the sand that would just cause a massive cloud if I tried to get it out. I did move things around in the tank a while back and that actually seemed to increase aggression for a while.

 

[Byron]

This is not going to work out. I vaguely recall an older thread, and I am sure I would have advised against all of this, but no matter. The dominant angelfish is just that, and he will remain dominant no matter what. A group of five or six minimum must be placed together at the same time, in suitable sized tank. A pair if it forms will then mean removing the pair or the other angelfish. You are dealing with instincts and behaviours programmed into the genetic blueprint of this species and these will not change if the fish remain normal and healthy.

 

[Uberhoust]

I wonder how long the experiment of your fish seeing fish outside the tank will help. I have tanks of Angels right now and I had to block the view between them to keep the peace with my angels. My dominant male was getting challenged from the male in the other tank, but the dominant male could not do anything about it, that got him very upset. The stress level went way up and both tanks had high levels of aggression. The barrier between the tanks reduced the aggression by a large amount. At some point the fish in the tank will want to interact with the fish outside the tank.

My personal experience suggests you can temporarily home juveniles with a breeding pair, but when they get older that no longer works. If you go with the 5 or 6 as a group you have to expect that sometime down the line you are going to have to rehome some of them, assuming tank size of 55 to 90 gallons. Might be OK with a longer tank 6' or longer. I don't know about other fish keepers but my angelfish do not take well to changes in the angelfish population within a tank, each change requires a re-establishment of the dominance hierarchy.

 

[CarissaT]

Well I have to go back to town in two weeks. If there’s still significant trouble I may bring the works of them back to the lfs and try some other type of fish later on. Or just keep the dominant one.

The fish seemed distracted by the videos, but it wasn’t one single fish interacting with them. Just more or less a distraction here and there.

 

[CarissaT]

So far today things are fairly peaceful. Everyone is eating and making at least short appearances. There are some half hearted chases but nothing major. So, we will wait to see how it plays out. I’m going to have to do very small water changes for a while since they always upset the dominant one.

 

[CarissaT]

This is an old thread but just wanted to update it. Everything worked out great. I lost one of the three new ones I added to a viral disease they brought in. But of the remaining two, one turned out to be a large dominant male and the other a smaller female. The two males have worked out their territories with only a minor fuss and rarely bother each other or any of the others now. No bullying or fighting, the occasional stand off between the two males when the original one decides to get cranky again.

 

[Byron]

This is good to hear, there is no way to tell how an individual fish may itself react to "x" but when it seems to work out, consider yourself fortunate. Things may change though...has any of them spawned yet? This is when the peace and tranquility can really be tested.