A most interesting and useful thread.
Having just put one in my mostly SPS reef (1500L/400USG capacity), last Saturday morning, I have become an avid consumer of everything about Regal angels, even more so than before it actually arrived. Mine apparently comes from Indonesia. It has a yellow chest, appears to be a male and is 12cm long ââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ basically a young adult.
It spent 3 weeks in quarantine, sharing a tank with yellow tangs and some damsels, before I got it, and was reportedly an enthusiastic consumer of pretty much everything it was offered. It certainly looks like it has been enjoying a good supply of food. One of those yellow tangs has also gone into my reef and I have seen the two hanging out together when they were still pretty shy and spent most of their time behind the rocks. They both started swimming freely round the tank some time yesterday (Thursday).
A large damsel and a purple tang have given them the most trouble but the damsel was not interested in pursuing them under the reef and the purple tang, which seemed most annoyed at the yellow tang, seems quite happy now. The damsel, which is the same size as the Regal, is now not interested in it and only chases the, smaller, yellow tang. Luckily, my very large blue tang (3 x the size of Regal) has carried on mostly ignoring all other fish, as per usual and as I had hoped it would.
Although this tank is only 2 months old, the reef and fish came from a similar sized tank I had been running for over 10 years. Since I expect the angel to spend quite a bit of time thinning out the sponge/whatever population under the reef I have not really bothered to try to feed it yet and it has been clearly quite happy picking round the rocks, something it started within an hour of arrival. Now that it is out and about I will see what I can interest it in on Saturday when I will have plenty of time to watch it through the day.
Unfortunately we cannot get the specialised frozen angel food here, due to agricultural/environmental import regulations, so I am going to have a go at mixing some local sponges into my own brew. I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have any zoanthids, as something else (unidentified) disposes of those, and it too early to tell what else it might eat that I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t want it to.
Steve