Any Bellus angel experiences to share?
- Thread starter pktech
- Start date
Dmorty217
Saltwater Addict
I had a female that I got at 1" that later died because of chloroquine phosphate causing worm die off. She was a model reef citizen and I loved that fish. Broke my heart to find her that morning. I would suggest getting two females and let them sort out which one will become male. Males are poor shippers
Dmorty217
Saltwater Addict
Yeah bummer indeed, that's not to mention the other 5 angels I lost, a tusk and a pyramid... Crap happens
pktech
Thread Ender
Oh man!!!! I remember reading your thread about that. I had an equally crappy experience last year - lost all my fish in 24hrs. scribbled, multibar, rock beauty ... due to the introduction of a very small porc puffer - after 21 days of qt, added him everyone was getting along & eating. According to Fenner, they're ich magnets & the rest is painful history.
Moort82
New member
I've had a little female bellus for a couple of years now and its up there with the best fish I've ever had. Its a very busy species and a model citizen with any corals I've kept it with. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend one to anyone but watch it for a while at the lfs as they can sometimes have swim bladder problems, caused by decompression, so make sure it is able to swim both up and down comfortably in the water column.
+1... One will turn male soon enough ... As long as there are no other Genicanthus males in the tank already.
jadette
Member
I love my bellus angels. Nothing negative to say about them. I have 3 of them in my 140g tank. i bought them about 1.5 years ago. Got them small - about 1.5". They grow very slowly, in my experience, compared to the other Genicanthus angels. They're all still under 3" even though I feed my tank heavily, and they are fat. My female swallowtail doubled in size in half the time. I had to get rid of my swallowtails b/c of their size (throws the scale off my tank when fish get over 5").
I got three females and they are still all female with no signs of any of them turning male. The largest of the 3 is the obvious dominant one. There is some chasing from time to time, but it's a very "passive" chasing that does not bother even the most skittish fish in my tank. Perhaps they are still too young to turn male?
Something to note - They do not hang out together and pay no attention to the other angels in my tank. They even leave my baby multibar angel alone!
Here's a FTS of my tank. The largest of my bellus angels is in the center of the tank. The other two are not pictured (probably swimming some place in the back).
I got three females and they are still all female with no signs of any of them turning male. The largest of the 3 is the obvious dominant one. There is some chasing from time to time, but it's a very "passive" chasing that does not bother even the most skittish fish in my tank. Perhaps they are still too young to turn male?
Something to note - They do not hang out together and pay no attention to the other angels in my tank. They even leave my baby multibar angel alone!
Here's a FTS of my tank. The largest of my bellus angels is in the center of the tank. The other two are not pictured (probably swimming some place in the back).
jadette
Member
Yes, I am definitely not afraid to put "reef safe with caution" fish in my SPS tank. 95% of my zoas did not survive my angel/butterfly additions, and all of my pectinias and war corals do not have eyes anymore, but the losses are definitely worth it!
I believe the key is that my sps colonies were already established when I added the angels and butterflies so all the nipping (and I do see a constant nipping behavior) is tolerated. New sps frags, on the other hand, have a tougher time surviving - but I have not cared to add any new corals in my tank for some time now. If anything, I want to thin out some of the variety to allow the larger colonies more room to spread out and grow.
Back to the bellus angels - I am seeing them more and more in the aquarium trade in the last year. Three years ago, they were difficult for me to find - and when I did see them, they were large adults. Now, the perfect 1-2" size specimens are everywhere and they are coming in looking very healthy.
I have contemplated picking up a couple more of them to get a large group of them, but since they don't seem to group together in my tank anyway, getting more of them would not provide much of an impressive display.
A couple of other positive tidbits about them that I love:
1) They readily take pellets
2) They tolerate treatments well - All three of mine continued to eat through prazipro treatments
3) They show no aggression towards other fish, even smaller, docile angels
4) They're the only predominantly reef safe blue fish that I could think of that isn't either a tang or a damsel!
38bill
Member
I have had my female Bellus for just under 6 years now. She's a great little fish, no aggression at all towards other fish. She was only about 1 1/4" long when I purchased her. Unfortunately she came in with a infection on her side, just underneath the right pectoral fin. As the infection spread the poor fish lost most of its fins including her tail but after many months of treatment she fully recovered. No problems at all since then and she remains fat and happy.
Dmorty217
Saltwater Addict
If they are the same size it could go on for awhile, if one is bigger than the other I would imagine it would stop within a few days. I have two female coming next week so I will post here and let you know how things go for me
o2manyfish
o2manyfish
I have been keeping Bellus Angels for over 10 years now. Last summer I had a trio. I bought the male as an adult with an adult female. After 5 months I bought a tiny 3/4" female and added that. They never paid any attention to it. 9 months later I caught the male spawning with the smaller female! Awesome to watch, and excellent food for the Anthias.
Unfortunately lost the trio with a tank crash last fall. I have a single juvenile female right now with an aberrant stripe pattern. Waiting to see if it grows up to be special or ugly.
In all my years of keeping these Angels they are great fish. They don't pick on anything. They are hardy. They quickly adapt to captivity. They don't care how your pair them up or when. They are active. None of the other fish ever get aggressive to them.
And I think they are beautiful.
If you get the opportunity I really think you will enjoy keeping a group of them.
Dave B
Unfortunately lost the trio with a tank crash last fall. I have a single juvenile female right now with an aberrant stripe pattern. Waiting to see if it grows up to be special or ugly.
In all my years of keeping these Angels they are great fish. They don't pick on anything. They are hardy. They quickly adapt to captivity. They don't care how your pair them up or when. They are active. None of the other fish ever get aggressive to them.
And I think they are beautiful.
If you get the opportunity I really think you will enjoy keeping a group of them.
Dave B
Stevenliu9
New member
Had a bellus for almost a year and it was a great fish with lots of personalities, until a power brown brought ich to the tank killing the bellus and itself.
