Safe to add fish after flame angel?

[Force4000]

Hello all.

I recently bought a pair of clowns and a flame angel for my 55g that had only a cardinal in the tank. So Now I have four fish total. I put then flame angel in 3 weeks ago but I am now reading I should have added him last. I wanted to added a green chromis or two and maby another cardinal but will they be safe to add this late from when adding the flame angel?

 

[ca1ore]

Beyond a few extremes cases, I tend to think the whole 'order of introduction' thing is a bit overblown frankly. Doesn't sound like you QT fish, so that puts them at a bit of an initial disadvantage, but the fish you propose ought to be OK. You could buy one of those 'kritter carriers' and use it as an initial socialization box to see if the newcomers elicit any overt aggression from your flame.

 

[snorvich]

An acclimation box is always a good idea. If a fish resides in the same ecological niche as an existing, established fish, there are often introduction problems. A chromis is a planktivore whereas the flame angel is an algae grazer.

 

[alton]

If it is a small Flame you should be okay, a large male and good luck

 

[Force4000]

Thanks for the response guys, I have a separation box that hangs on the tank didn't even think of that I will put them in there for a short time. The flame is very young. Unfortunately I do not have a QT tank, I am trying to convince the gf to allow another fish tank... :worried:

 

[Dmorty217]

Show us a picture of yours. Males are distinguishable between females from a few different markings. Wide black bars = male. Pointed instead of rounded anal fin =male. Obviously you need to get the opposite sex of what you currently have

 

[humaguy]

go with the anal fin shape over the width of bars...

 

[SDguy]

go with the anal fin shape over the width of bars...

This.

 

[Stevenliu9]

I have had my flame for over two years, and added a few fish since then, including cardinals. In general my flame left them all alone. But I also have a LOT of rock work as he darts in and out and he's just too busy picking on the rocks to even pay attention to any other fish. He has NEVER shown aggression to others in the tank. But each fish has different personality so I can't speak for your flame. One thing you can try is rearrange the rock work each time you add new fish to "re-assign" territory. Obviously this doesn't mean you can add anything as long as you rearrange rocks, this is to simply reduce the amount of stress on the new fish as existing ones will guard their established ground. But with the rearrange then it's fair game.