Dwarf Angel & messed up tail.

[Everyones Hero]

My co-worker was telling me that her Dwarf Angel was starting to look like it's tail was getting shredded. She said she had another fish that had looked the same way before it had died.

I know she also had a Maroon Clown in the tank.

These two, along with at least one other fish are all being kept in a 10 or 15g (she doesn't even know the size of the tank.)

Any idea as to what would cause it to look like it's tail was getting shredded & what the minimum size tank it needs is?

She said it's "content" because it's always swimming side to side & sometimes swims up & down the water column. I told her that was probably because it needs a bigger tank. I told her that angels & tangs generally need larger tanks because they're more territorial & are more energetic than most fish.
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I can't imagine that water quality is very good. I asked what her SG was & she said she didn't know. She said her BF checked it last time he stopped by, but that's once in a blue moon. She doesn't have a hydrometer.

I gave her my old SeaClone to pull some crap out. I know it's not a good skimmer, but it's better than nothing on her overstocked tank.

 

[1ucky]

One of the fish in her tank is definately attacking the angel; I myself pulled out a Blue Face Angel out of my tank today due to a Miniatus Grouper constantly harassing it; his tail was in shreads.

 

[Everyones Hero]

Thanks. I thought the Angel would be the aggressor.

Would it do alright in my 55g? I have a Lawnmower Blenny & a Springer's Dottyback. It's FOWLR at the moment, but will start becoming a reef tank before long.

 

[Everyones Hero]

I just talked to her. She said it's a Half Black Angel. The only other fish is the Maroon Clown. She thinks that her hermit crab is getting it & she says the two fish tend to avoid each other. She said she'll keep an eye out & if she has to she'll separate them.

 

[LisaD]

If the tank is a 15 or 20, it is definitely too small. It's too bad she doesn't know/care about tank maintenance or caring for the fish. There's really no excuse not to monitor tank parameters or keep two aggressive/territorial fish in a small tank. She needs test kits for at least pH, ammonia and nitrate, and a hydrometer.

Ask her to measure the tank, l x w x h. A 10 gallon is 20 inches long, a 20H is 24. If it's 30 inches long, it's either a 29 or a 20L.

The angel would be fine in your 55, but if you go with a reef, it may pick at corals/clams. The maroon clown would be reef safe, but they get good sized and can be really mean. they are the most aggressive of the clowns, IMO. A single maroon clown will become a female, and they get six inches long.

For those two fish at adult size, I'd say you'd need a minimum 40 breeder or 55.

A good site for species research is www.wetwebmedia.com

maroon clowns article
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/maroonclnart.htm

dwarf angelfish articles
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/fishes/angels/centropyge/index.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/centropyge2.htm

If you can convince your friend to buy and read it, New Marine Aquarium is a must - inexpensive, an easy read, with lots of common sense advice.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Marine-Aq...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219801795&sr=8-1

For serious species research,

Clownfishes by Joyce Wilkerson
Angelfishes and Butterflyfishes by Scott Michael

 

[Everyones Hero]

One of the guys I work with was asking me if she was going to give me one of her fish. I told him I didn't know.

He told me her tank was really small. He said it's about 12" wide & maybe 16" or 18" tall. It's a hex tank.

We both have the New Marine Aquarium book, I guess she forgot about the words & only looked at the pictures. :hammer:

 

[LisaD]

oh, ouch, that tank is way too small. no disrespect intended, but she should be keeping guppies in that tank. even big hexes are pretty worthless IMO.

or if she kept it salt, keep neon and clown gobies or something.

if you did get any of her fish, I would QT first.

 

[Everyones Hero]

Absolutely. She's bought a lot of fish from PetCo & nearly all of them have died within a few days. I can't remember if she's had more luck with the LFS I showed to her.

When she first told me she had the Clown & Angel in that small of a tank I was like "What the hell?" I didn't know what to think when she said the fish seemed "happy" because it was always swimming from side to side & would swim from the top of the tank to the bottom.

I said "That's because the tank is too small. Fish swim from side to side in one layer of the water table. If they're going top to bottom the tank is probably too small."

 

[killerzulu]

Some fish don't fit the mold.

Some fish don't fit the mold.

I have a lawnmower blenny that is a murderer. I finally gave up trying to keep a blue hippo tang after the lawnmower killed the second one. For some reason this lawnmower doesn't like the yellow portion of the hippo tang's tail and went after it viciously. Both times he immediately started harrassing the hippo the minute they went into the tank. I introduced the second one at night to try to improve the odds, but to no avail. The aggression started the minute the lights came on.

The tank is an 8' long 240 gallon with a LOT of rock work to hide in and around. It also has an upstream fuge as well as a downstream DSB/magrove fuge that acount for an additional nearly 100 gallons of water volume. I have a purple tang and a yellow tang as well as 4 pajama cardinals and 6 bangai cardinals that the lawnmower doesn't seem to mind at all.

However, I recently added a flame angel that I suspect his involvement in the death of as well as a beautiful healthy immediately-eating Potter's angel that went downhill fast. Both appeared to have damaged tails just before disappearing. I am overly cautious when acclimating new arrivals and my water quality is tip top (fish and coral bio-load is tremendous so it has to be). I'm running a pH controller with a kalk stirrer, ozone, and a powerful custom skimmer with a bubble-king style baffold in it. I am maintaining ORP values around 380, pH around 8.3, calcium around 440, alk around 10, magnesium around 1350, and a temp around 77 degrees with less than 1 degree of variance daily. I'm also running a continuous water change pump that swaps about 2% of my tank volume daily.

I personally witnessed the hippo tang attacks, but the angels were a little more cryptic so I just saw the results. I would remove the lawnmower, except that he was one of my first fish and has been a faithful member of my cleaning crew for over 4 years now. We lovingly refer to him as 'Old-goat'.

If you look around you'll have a hard time finding reports of lawnmowers being agressive with fish nearly 8 times their size. It's important however to remember that these animals are individuals and don't always obey the conventions of their species. It's a good idea to keep a fish trap handy and pay very close attention to the way your existing tank inhabitants regard a new arrival. You never know for sure if everybody is going to get along until you put them together despite what the compatibility charts indicate.