Wow, it's great to see how this thread has developed! I posted originally back on page 2 a year and a half ago!
Greg Scheimer, it's great to see you participating here, and you've been an inspiration to all regal fans and owners.
I now have a trio of regals in my display system, getting along well after establishing a hierarchy. Aggression appears to be much less than seen when mixing other large angel species. I unfortunately lost my stereotypical male regal that graced the cover of Reefcentral's home page last September after the unbelievably stressful move to our new house in Dec/Jan. This fish, pictured in my avatar, had a beautiful long gill spine that apparently as we seem to believe signifies a male. I'll post close-up pictures later, but I believe I have at least two females, and possibly all three. If I see another specimen like my old one talked about above I'll jump on it, but I'm in no rush and am excited to see the dynamics of their interactions play out.
There are two around 5 inches, and the third is noticibly smaller at around 3.5 inches. One of the 5 inchers was in the system for months before adding the smaller specimen, with the third being added a few weeks behind that one. Aggression showed towards the small one was evident but minimal, as she quickly learned her place and kept her distance from the original one, and continues to this day, except during feeding time as you'll see in the pictures. The third specimen became the dominant fish within a week of its introduction. I'm thinking this to possibly be a male... while it's gill spine is a bit in between, its body is more elongated and less full than the large full bodied female. I've seen no aggression that's made me consider pulling any of them out yet, and for a while now they've been getting along. I'm excited to see how thing play out in the future, and plan on upgrading again as I had this house built to house a 600-700 gallon display tank which is just a couple of years away depending on a few factors
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Some pointers I could give after a few years of personal experience with these guys...
Quarantine- I've seen this brought up in this and other threads, and in my opnion people use hospital and quarantine systems almost interchangably. If your quarantine consists of a 10 or 20 gallon with a sponge filter and a pvc pipe... don't quarantine your regal!
People mistakenly think the primary purpose of quarantine is to keep disease from your display, but to me that's at the bottom of the list. I have a 6 foot "frag tank" that I have divided with egg crate into divisions with live rock loaded with algaes, sponges, and other microlife. I use these sections for certain new fish (regals, moorish idol), allowing them to settle into an establsihed system with NO competition, NO beligerant tankmates, and plenty of food sources to pick on before they figure out that that stuff floating by is food. Remember, regal angels feed from the reef and are not planktivores. Having it sequestered allows you to throw different foods at them without competition, and having alternate food sources allows them to keep their stomach full until they decide to eat. Keep in mind, you want them to get SOMETHING in their stomach AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Worry about diets and Bob's super sponge food later. What's worked with many fish for me, and really with regals is fresh clams and mussels... they are nearly irresistable. One of mine eat only these for weeks... were it not for it being seperate the clam would be gone too quickly. Also, keeping them seperate allows you to treat them if necessary for parasites or anything... one of mine was very lethargic and I thought it a goner... I noticed a fluke on its eyeball and gave a freshwater dip, resulting in about 20 more coming off of its gills... the next day it was happy. Again, if this fish were thrown into the display I would not have been able to do this...
Remember, a calm relaxed fish is a happy fish, and our display tanks are not a calm and relaxed place to go. It's good to toughen them up, get them fat, and get them not only eating but eating well. I use and mentioned long ago in this thread the method of using a turkey baster to selectively feed certain fish more than others (the tangs can work off the liverock!
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Many people also talk about letting the fish settle into the LFS tank first, but as time goes on I think differently. I think the best route for success with a regal is to get it into your hands as soon as you can out of the ocean, assuming you are placing it into a good environment, even if it ISN'T eating. Ideally, we'd all find them eating and ready to go, but many times that's not the case. I've ordered from Liveaquaria and gotten regals locally. Despite what any online vendor says, my experience has been that I highly doubt they verify EVERY fish is eating before they ship. I love Liveaquaria and highly recommend them, even for regals. Unfortunately at most LFS they do not receive the time needed, variety of food offered, and environment with alternate food sources that they should.
I really think that given the proper care and handling, the majority of regals could adapt to captivity. One thing to beware of is large regals... in the 7-8" range and up... these appear to be much tougher to get to feed... seemingly obvious but something that's been quite evident as I've seen many of these come in. Also, regarding the Pacific/Red Sea debate I doubt it's due to the color of their chest or the place they're from. I think it's due purely to collection methods, time in transit, and handling. The Red Sea sets the standard it appears as I see shipments come in directly from around the world at a local wholesaler here... the Pacific regals are already a step behind when they get in here... If you see a healthy blue chester go for it... while not as vibrant as the Red Sea variety, all good regals deserve a good home!
I seem to have rambled on a bit, but I always find fisthand information the best and offer it where I can... after all if we went by what all the books said none of us would be keeping regals... Now, I'll just shut up and offer a few photos I took last night with flash under actinics of my trio feeding...
Copps
And a cool shot looking down the tank at the three of them under actinics...
