Ive only been in the saltwater side of the hobby for about 7 months and one of the things I keep hearing in pet shops up and down the country is that you can only keep on dwarf angelfish in a tank.
So I thought I'd ask you all the reason why this seems to be 'fact'
Is it the alternative of keeping freshwater betta fish where they will just keep fighting til the bitter end?
Is it about them being territorial about parts of the tank?
No pet shop 'expert' seems to have a answer. It seems to be like the old myth of only 1 fish per x amount of water rule.
Is it possible to do, are there obstacles to overcome or is it just a case of if they like each other then they will live together?
Thankyou in advance, and apologies if it's a stupid question but I'm very much still learing
Hey there! What size is your tank?
Dwarf Angels can mix in larger tanks but we rarely recommend it for smaller tanks as their aggressive behaviours may not allow for other dwarfs to be with them.
It also depends what species you’re after specifically, some will mix with ease, others you’ll have a lot more difficulty mixing.
I have what most shops round the UK call a “Fireball” Angel (African Flame Back or
Centropyge acanthops for those over the pond), mixed with a Multicolour Angel (
Centropyge multicolour) in my 5 foot 700l/180G system. Now, the Acanthops is my most aggressive angel in the tank, and that’s saying something as I have 4 angels mixed together, one being a Majestic angel (
Pomacanthus navarchus - which can be quite defensive when they want). But the Multicolour and Flagfin (
Apolemichthys trimaculatus) are much more relaxed and stay in the background of the hierarchy. A few photos of the 4 angels I have if you don’t know what they look like;
Also, that’s another thing a lot of shops may tell you is that the “large” angels all require 6 foot (600-800l) tanks - it’s simply not true for ALL of them. Most of them, yes I’d agree. But that’s another story.
Back to the main question though, the obstacles that can overcome the aggression are;
1. Mirror trick, angels will always fall for this (so will Wrasses and Tangs) - It’s basically where on one side of the tank you place a mirror which distracts the old guys from any new comers with minimal aggression towards them.
2. Rearranging rockscapes. This totally resets the territory that your fish claimed, and with a lot of dwarfs (this was especially the case with my Acanthops) they will often claim the whole rockwork.
3. The size of dwarf angels you get. I have a 3.5 inch Acanthops, and my multicolour is only just 2 inches, she’s grown since I got her, but it meant that she could get into the holes and caves that my (fat and large) acanthops couldn’t reach, giving her a break from the aggression.
\————>this did come with a downside of I didn’t see my Multicolour for a good 5-6 hours after she entered the tank and faced some nasty aggression from the acanthops. But as you can see, she found the one cave nobody (not even me) knew existed!
I hope this helps a bit!
Oh and a shot of my 5 footer for an idea of the rock scape the angels can claim - see if you can spot them all!
