Reintroducing bullied angel

[ZoddyZod]

Hello all,

been a while!

After several years I've ended up with just 2 angels. They have ALWAYS bickered but since the 3rd angel died it seems one of them has lost the aggression battle. At one point the fish was so week I found it lying on the floor whilst a Cory swam all over it. I decided to move it to a temporary home to see out its remaining days in peace. It's been almost two weeks now and the fish seems to have fully recovered. The question now is, how to reintroduce to a tank where I'm sure the fighting will kick off again.

I'm thinking about adding several (maybe 3) new angels with the removed one, whilst taking the bully out of the tank for a week before reintroducing - whilst also rearranging the tank decor to reset the territories, and then seeing how they get on. Hoping the increase of angels will mean it's not a constant battle between the two of them.

Thoughts?

 

[fluttermoth]

It's always risky trying to introduce angels to each other, but you'll stand a much better chance of success if you add a few more.

If the original two didn't get on previously, then that's very unlikely to change, so just adding your one bullied one back on its own would probably be a disaster.

 

[Byron]

Agree, and will go a step farther...this is not going to work, guaranteed. To understand why you need to know the angelfish behaviour/mentality.

Angelfish are shoaling fish that live in small shoals or groups. With sufficient tank space, or in the wild, the more dominant males will manage their territory fairly peacefully. But within the confines of most any home aquarium, this may or may not work. If the tank is large enough, and here I am thinking a 6-foot but preferably longer tank with a group of 6-10 angelfish, it can work, though not always. In smaller spaces, one of the males usually becomes more dominant, a bully in fact, and with fewer than five initially, this will almost always occur, though again individual fish may vary. But it is common enough to be standard so it should be expected.

It does not take long for a male angelfish to establish his territory. Clearly this was done here. Even removing him, rearranging the space, and then re-introducing is unlikely to solve the problem, so much so that I will say it won't. Introducing more angelfish might work, but they would have to be of the same size/age as the present two, and at least four of them. This too is very risky, if you have tank space (4 or 5-foot tank) and given the dominance of the one existing angelfish I really would not expect this to work either.

My advice is to keep the angels separate, with no other cichlids present. And for any wondering, angelfish should always be acquired in groups of no less than five, and at the same time, if the tank is large enough. Acquiring two, three or four angelfish is never a good idea. While someone may say it worked for them, this was pure luck; the inherent nature of the fish is against it, and we are wisest to assume the fish will be "normal" and not "abnormal" to suit our purpose. That rarely works, and the poor fish can be stressed to death.

Byron.

 

[ZoddyZod]

I started with 6 in the tank for the above reasons.

Sadly it looks like I'm resigned to letting one go and just keeping a single.

 

[fluttermoth]

As my son often says, 'angel' is about the worst naming ever! They're feisty devils, really. All my male angels have ended up as singletons for the same reason

 

[Byron]

I started with 6 in the tank for the above reasons.

Sadly it looks like I'm resigned to letting one go and just keeping a single.

If you mean that the one "bully" slowly killed the others one by one, this is not uncommon. As I said previously, individual fish can be contrary to the norm. We can try a group and hope it will work, and usually it does, but not always.

 

[ZoddyZod]

No. The others simply seemed to die 'naturally', in fact the 3rd to last was almost completely ignored by the final two.

If you mean that the one "bully" slowly killed the others one by one, this is not uncommon. As I said previously, individual fish can be contrary to the norm. We can try a group and hope it will work, and usually it does, but not always.

 

[Byron]

No. The others simply seemed to die 'naturally', in fact the 3rd to last was almost completely ignored by the final two.

It may also be that the others were slowly weakened by the aggressive signals from the dominant; even if this doesn't come to physical attacks, there are pheromones released by the fish that others in the species can "read," like chemical communicators, and this can severely stress the subordinates.

 

[hobby5]

What is your tank size?

 

[ZoddyZod]

The fish is now at a LFS. One of the staff was keen to take it as he has a group of similar sized specimens at home.

Got myself 3 cupid cichlids to fill the Angel void!