Angelfish Pairing?

[ThRoewer]

How can you tell?

One usually follows the other.
In the narrow confines of a tank it is sometimes harder to tell as they can't get far from each other anyway.
The real pair bond will only form when they reach maturity which comes with some quite a while after the color change.

The regal "pair" I had in the past would never be far from each other, but neither of them had reached full maturity at that point (you can tell by the development of their gill thorns).

Some angels will swim side by side like you sometimes see it with butterfly fish. Though I have never seen that with regals.

BTW: not all large angels form mated pairs.

The ones that definitely form pairs are Apolemichthys trimaculatus, almost all the Chaetodontoplus, Genicanthus melanospilos, Pomacanthus annularis, Pomacanthus imperator, Pomacanthus sexstriatus and Pygoplites diacanthus

 

[BlueMac92]

Angelfish Pairing?

The ones that definitely form pairs are Apolemichthys trimaculatus, almost all the Chaetodontoplus, Genicanthus melanospilos, Pomacanthus annularis, Pomacanthus imperator, Pomacanthus sexstriatus and Pygoplites diacanthus

Anything on navarchus? I have never seen anyone keep two in a tank. I've thrown back and forth the idea to keep another with mine, but don't want to be the "test dummy"...

*Edit: I suppose a quick Google search would have answered that. Anyone on here tried it before?

 

[ThRoewer]

P, navarchus is one of those that do not form pairs. I think with those the females rather have their own territories within a males larger territory or bordering to a central males territory.

At the end of this article you can find a list on which fish form true pairs and which not:
Pair- Formation in Coral Reef Fishes: An Ecological Perspective (Full text)
Though I think they got the clownfish mostly wrong - to my experience they all form bonded pairs. The little ones they may allow to live with them are just tolerated and not a harem.