Secret to angels

[Wildreefs]

Can anyone give me some advice on keeping angels? Specially juvenile types in that 2-3 inch range?

I always seem to lose them even after there eating. I’ll see them eating , and next day they are stuck dead or weak on a relatively weak power head.

tried juv emperors, chrysurus, blue face etc.
Are they just finicky to keep in general?

 

[S2G]

Not really. Those are pretty tough angels. I was worried buying my emp but I think the key is finding a healthy fish. Mine ate day 1 from across the world.

I use an observation tank to make sure all new fish eat and get settled in. I think that makes a huge difference

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

They are sensitive to ammonia and are prone to intestinal parasites and flukes.

 

[pcon]

In my experience there is a goldilocks zone with angelfish sizes. Too small and they need near constant feeding, too large and they don't adapt to prepared foods and captivity as well. I am 4 days shy of 6 months with my P. venusta, I started them on 12-15 feedings a day for the first week, down to frozen 5 times a day over the first month, and now I feed 3x a day frozen, and 3x a day with an auto feeder. I am a firm believer in diverse frequent feedings, and including a quality angelfish specific preparations like, hikari mega-marine angel, SFB angel and butterfly, Ocean Nutrition's pygmy angel formula. These are valuable because they include sponge, a part of angelfishes natural diet.

 

[Haydn]

I adore angels and have found if the water is reasonable they tend to be hardy. They do need good quality food and areas within the tank to browse. My tanks always have an angel or 4 in them. I have two Majestics in the tank at the moment, I'm hoping they will bond in a year or so once they mature.

One tip I found to keep them healthy is angels love to browse on sponges, so grow sponge rocks. I started by having a small pile of LR (about 8-10 4"-6" chunks) in a sheltered dark area of the sump, the sponges colonised the rock naturally. I would then take a rock with the sponges on it from the pile and put it in a sheltered area in my display, the angels once they found it would browse the sponges, interestingly they wouldn't eat it all at once but like a cow eating grass in a field, they would take 2-3 bites then move on. When the rock was 'clean' I would put it back in the sump and replace it with one from the pile. The angels take about a week to clean the rock and it takes about a month- six weeks for the rock to get covered again. I found it needed to be in good contact with the other sponge rock in the sump for it to get a good covering quickly. I have a couple of seed rocks which never went into the display.

 

[cancun]

Can anyone give me some advice on keeping angels? Specially juvenile types in that 2-3 inch range?

I always seem to lose them even after there eating. I’ll see them eating , and next day they are stuck dead or weak on a relatively weak power head.

tried juv emperors, chrysurus, blue face etc.
Are they just finicky to keep in general?

Hi! I understand where you are coming from. A good healthy specimen that is eatting at the LFS is a great start. Where did you get your angels from? How did you acclimate them? How long did they live?

 

[mjreefs]

Can anyone give me some advice on keeping angels? Specially juvenile types in that 2-3 inch range?

I always seem to lose them even after there eating. I’ll see them eating , and next day they are stuck dead or weak on a relatively weak power head.

tried juv emperors, chrysurus, blue face etc.
Are they just finicky to keep in general?

I actually had a French that started as a 2-3" juvenile as well, but I never saw it suddenly stuck dead or weak. Medicated with copper + Prazi in QT and has been transferred to the DT. Now it is at 4". Never changed its eating habits, except probably that it has more access to Nori now (since I don't feed Nori in QT).


I also had a Chrysurus angel that I acquired in the 3-3.5" range, same thing, ate well, acclimated well, medicated well. Not sure what happened to your fish. Probably some internal parasites?

 

[cancun]

I actually had a French that started as a 2-3" juvenile as well, but I never saw it suddenly stuck dead or weak. Medicated with copper + Prazi in QT and has been transferred to the DT. Now it is at 4". Never changed its eating habits, except probably that it has more access to Nori now (since I don't feed Nori in QT).


I also had a Chrysurus angel that I acquired in the 3-3.5" range, same thing, ate well, acclimated well, medicated well. Not sure what happened to your fish. Probably some internal parasites?

I was wondering that too, or a acclimation issue from hypo salinity (from the dealers tank) to normal salinity in the OP's tank?!

 

[Gareth elliott]

Can anyone give me some advice on keeping angels? Specially juvenile types in that 2-3 inch range?

I always seem to lose them even after there eating. I’ll see them eating , and next day they are stuck dead or weak on a relatively weak power head.

tried juv emperors, chrysurus, blue face etc.
Are they just finicky to keep in general?

What other fish are they being kept with? In the absence of starving or an obvious disease aggressive tank mates ime is a leading cause of death. Adult angels can hold their own against most fish but juveniles are more prone to be picked on by say an aggressive tang, a dwarf angel(2 inch dwarf can easily take on a 6” fish added after it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

They are susceptible to hole un the head and HLLE. Be sure to add vitamins such as selcon to their food and also garlic.
LRS is a great diet as well as herbivore food and foods that contain sponge
Water quality also essential

 

[najer]

As above, varied diet and things to graze.
I just returned a Chrysurus to my lfs that I got at thumb nail size, it was a solid 2 inch fish, they didn't believe it was the same fish!
I run my tanks messy so there is always natural grazing.
I returned a lemon peel 2 days ago, doubled in size with me.
I will be returning my venustus when I can catch it.
All three developed a taste for my nps so are out.
They all take pellets flake and frozen and there is plenty of sponge in my tanks.
My flame angel pecks at everything but just stealing food and my baby cherub seems cool around corals as well.