Thought's on best ways to mix Centropyge

[Claus84]

Hi all,

Hoping to get some opinions on the best way to go about mixing my coral beauty and flame angel. I have both a coral beauty and flame angel, both captive bred which are currently in seperate QT's.

I've had the coral beauty for 7 months and its currently around 2.5" whereas the flame is new and around 1".

I removed the beauty from the DT around 3 weeks ago and have since had a complete re-arrange of the rockwork so in effect the display is currently neutral territory.

I've had a couple of thoughts on how to go about introducing them to one another and would be interested to get other peoples thoughts, especially from people with experience mixing dwarf angels. My options as I see them are:

1. Mix both fish in QT to see how they react to one another, if all goes well then release them both into the DT after a month or so.
2. Skip mixing in QT and just add both to DT at same time and let them argue and establish territories. (i'm concious that how they react to one another in a relatively barren QT may not be indicative of their behaviour once in a reef tank anyway)
   
3. Add flame first as it is the smaller fish, then add coral beauty once flame has established itself (1 week later?) on the assumption that if it does kick off the established flame would likely be the aggressor and the beauty is large enough to take the abuse until they work it out.

The display tank is a soft coral reef of 90g (48"x18"x24") with around 100lb rock. Depending on who you ask tank size is borderline for mixing dwarf species however both are captive bred so SHOULD be less territorial/aggressive.

My main concern is the size difference as the coral beauty is a much more substantial fish than the flame. As you can imagine once either fish is in my reef it will be almost impossible to remove them if all hell breaks and will necessitate a complete tank overhaul so i'd rather take whatever precautionary steps I can to avoid this.

Thanks in advance

Nick

 

[eatbreakfast]

Option 3 is your best scenario in this situation.

 

[Claus84]

Thanks, I'll add the flame then let it get established for a few weeks before adding the cb