Angelfish is Growing up!

[Fishboy42]

Found an old picture of my half-moon angelfish (Pomacanthus maculosus ) purchased in Feb. 2005 as tank-raised. I think she was about the size of a half-dollar at first. This is the earliest picture I have from the 58g at the house:

And a recent picture from late Feb 2008. For those of you who know him, there's Pete the Puffer for scale This is in the tank that we call Don's 300 She's lost most of the white striping and developed the yellow "half-moon" bar mid-body:

 

[Russell1017]

wow shes gotten big

 

[acrodave]

Very nice

 

[ct_vol]

I noticed last time I was out, that it had just about finished the adult/juvi transition... You could see the remnants of the vertical white stripes were a lot more prominent just 6 or so months ago...

 

[fishdoc11]

She's beautifull

 

[EvilMel]

...fat as all hades too. That's awesome Matt. You are so great at taking care of your fish!

 

[mattsilvester]

Old thread I know..... but thats a lovely home grown fish .... well done.... how big is he? What size tank is he in..... tell use a bit about him

 

[Fishboy42]

Thanks guys

I'd guess it's now about 8"/ 20cm ? Not really sure about that though. The dorsal streamer has grown a lot over the past couple of months though. I'll try to get another picture this week, as I think it's grown since the picture above.

The angel started bothering the tangs in the 300g tank (and eating all of their food), so we moved it into a 600g (bit over 2 000 l) lagoon tank on the same system--easier said than done!

It seems happy, although the sponge growth on EvilMel's live rock in that tank was really taking off (I dose phytoplankton in there in the mornings when I'm making the rounds), and it is now suffering in the angel's presence, but I guess it's good for the fish anyway

Since it now resides with larger fish (four sharks, a batfish, a trumpetfish, and Naso and Kole tangs that for whatever reason get along with everybody and don't have any problem getting to the food ), it gets a lot of meaty foods in its diet, along with daily feedings of nori and the occasional cube of an angel diet and gel-based clownfish broodstock food (and of course grazing the sponges and algae from the rock).
Before adding the angel:

 

[acrodave]

cool pic Matt dose the trumpet fish hide on one side of the bigger fish like it dose in the wild when its hunting

 

[Fishboy42]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12231472#post12231472 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by acrodave
dose the trumpet fish hide on one side of the bigger fish like it dose in the wild when its hunting

Yes, he tries to hide himself behind Orby the batfish, but he is only able to do it when Orby isn't moving too fast, which isn't often, and neither is afraid to come to the front and beg for food when he sees someone near the tank (I guess because they usually get some...).

Orby is a really skittish fish and tends to go nuts if startled, but I think he's been doing it less since we added the trumpet a few months ago. Orby used to topple all the rockwork, push all the sand away from the sides of the tank, knock the glass lids off (one broke), and splash water on the floors from his old tank. He still darts occasionally in the bigger tank, but I think he's calmed-down a bit since we added the trumpet.