The angel thread to end all angel threads: all owners of angelfish in reefs respond!!

[reeftanker3295]

Bump
I now own an angel for my reef :bounce3:
I've always wanted one, but I was afraid to lose my corals. I saw this beautiful female bellus angel in a new LFS with great ratings and she was fat, eating, and cheap.
She has been in my tank for about 3 weeks now, and she's doing great. Eats all frozen foods and pellets. She loves to swim back and forth allll day :fish1:
Hasn't even looked at any corals.

 

[AquamanE]

Hey Lobster, any updated spreadsheets?

 

[jflick345]

I've owned a flame angel for about 15 months that has been a model citizen in my mixed reef with acans, hammer, sps, zoas, chalice, assorted softies and mushrooms.

 

[SpencerG]

I had an Eibli dwarf angel for two years (hurricane Gustav casualty) that was an absolutely great fish. It left the corals alone as far as I could tell.

I got a lemonpeel after rebooting the tank, and it was the polar opposite. It immediately went after sps and everything else. I evicted it and haven't gotten the nerve up to add another angel, though lately I am tempted to get a Potters or another Eibli.

 

[Mike321]

I've had my coral beauty for 2 months now, he picks on 2 certain sps and leaves others alone. Hasn't done any damage to them though.

 

[Angel*Fish]

My flames, CB, argi's were all good citizens. Not sure if that counts for anything because I avoided the types of corals angels usually go for.

I tried to add a brain once and the heraldi thought I was feeding the tank with it. He definitely had a taste for brains.

My Singapore was simlar to the heraldi, except that he had a fascination with clams. Never caused damage to the clams, but he did look at them a LOT and would occasionally taste, but not bite.

 

[acronautical]

I've had my Marshall Islands Coral Beauty for 7 1/2 years. Great fish and (knock on wood) model citizen.

 

[lisafoster]

Cherub pygmy angel- kept with lps, few montis, softies, it has never been kept with zoas. I have never ntoiced it bothering anything.

 

[Montireef]

I have these angels in a 125 gal SPS dominated reef tank:

P. IMPERATOR.
8 cm long, juvenile changing to adult.
He is the boss in my tank, even much bigger fishes lake a. japonicus, p. hepatus or a coupled a. melanopus clowns beware of him. Nips on every coral, specially montiporas, seriatoporas, poccilloporas and LPSs but does not make great damage and they recover with no issue. The way he nips makes me think he does not look for the fleshy polyp but the slimy part.

E. XANTHOMETOPON
8 cm long, juvenile changing to adult.
Very friendly with other mates, even the imperator. Nips actively on every coral with no preference but does not make important damages as the tank is full of SPSs and they have time to recover.

Although both angels nip on corals, I presume they get this way no more than 20% of their diet as I feed them no less than 5 times every day (four times with pellets from an automatic feeder) and manually when I am at home with other kind of foods (seaweeds, other pellets... but never frozen food)

 

[theplatypus]

I've tried 4 pygmy angel fish and all 4 have nipped sooner or later.
2x Coral Beauty Nipped at SPS(one started nipping pocil within minutes of acclimation)
2x Cherub- 1 ate favia,Acan, 1 Acan, Dendro

 

[neuwave]

I have a fat potters angel that lives with a big clam and multiple sps, lps, zoas etc. Only picks at the rock nothing more. I used to have a harem of flames in the same tank with no problem. A acan got nipped at once (from the flames) cause I slacked on the feeding. (exams at that time) Completely my fault.
Completey agree wih the pass posts that feeding your angels will curve their appetite from corals.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Ok here's my history. All were kept in a 400 G mixed reef with various corals throughout the life of the tank, a little over 7 years now.

Coral Beauty Angle. Seems I've always had one in my reef's dating back to the early '90's. Still have one today in my 400G tank. In over 20 years of keeping them, I have never had one bother any corals of any type.

Ebili Angle. Been in mixed reef for about 6 months. No problems.

Potters Angle. No problems with any corals.

Rusty Angle. No problems with any corals.

Gold Flake Angle. Never had any problems with him. Got him from a fellow RCer who had problems with him picking on Zoa's at the time. I didn't have any so I don't know if it was still aproblem. Didn't bother anything in my tank.

Pair of Wantanabi Angles. Again, did not bother anything in the tank.

Pair of Bellus Angles. No problems with any corals.

Majestic Angle. No problems.

As of today, I only have the Majestic Angle and a Ebili Angle and recently added a Coral Beauty Angle. Most of the other fish were lost due to electrical failure.

I think one of the reasons my fish do not bother anything is that they are well fed and have been "Conditioned" to look for me for food. I feed a varied diet of pellets, frozen and nori.

 

[NatureNerd]

Any final update to this thread?

 

[rfalvey89]

Update - My pair of Genicanthus melanospilos will not touch ANY type of coral. I put a huge Derasa in Saturday. Things were fine all day Sat & SUN and I get home from work tonight and the Male is swimming circles around the clam like a vulture taking nips at it....needless to say I called my friend and put it simply- " come get this thing out of here " ( the clam ) ...he is on his way over. sucks because it really was a nice addition to the tank. I know it's 50/50 but we learn as we go.

 

[n0rk]

1. What kind of angel Centropyge eibli
2. Whether it was reef-safe Nipped at the polyps of Stylophora and Pocillopora, but otherwise safe.
3. If it was not reef-safe, what did it eat? N/A

1. What kind of angel Centropyge ferrugata x Centropyge loriculus
2. Whether it was reef-safe Totally reef safe, ignored all corals (all SPS).
3. If it was not reef-safe, what did it eat? N/A


I've kept a bunch more, but these are the two notables in that they displayed an inclination towards either nothing whatsoever (not even nipping), or an absolute preference towards a single family of corals. Everything else has had the occasional nip across the board, however I've never had one which killed a coral outright.

 

[Crkbaby]

Flame angel in mixed reef tank never touched a thing that I have seen or had things come up missing or damaged in over 2 years

 

[therman]

To bump and add my data...and hopefully inspire an update to the spreadsheet

Majestic Angel
~1 yr, no problems with sps, 2 clams, a few zoas, and Acan bowerbanki

Flame angel
~1 yr, no problems with sps, or Xenia (wish it would eat it!)

 

[kv2wr1]

Coral Beauty Angelfish (Centropyge bispinosa)
Owned for about 7 months in a primarily soft coral reef with a few LPS.
Eats frozen, pellet food, pods from the live rock and on the glass.
Has not picked at corals or clam mantle.

 

[Swolek]

1. What kind of angel Lemonpeel
2. Whether it was reef-safe With soft coral, yes, not not with my single LPS
3. If it was not reef-safe, what did it eat? Candycane coral, my only LPS at the time

1. What kind of angel Pygmy Cherub
2. Whether it was reef-safe Yes
3. If it was not reef-safe, what did it eat? Nothing

I only had the Cherub for a month so I don't know if you want to count it. It had an odd growth when I bought it and didn't make it.

 

[US27inKS]

My Coral Beauty has been in my tank for 10 years. There have been a lot of softies and lps come and go over the years. Never seen him touch a thing. Just got a new (to me) bigger tank. The Royal Gramma that came with the tank cowers in the corner from my little CB terror. I hope they learn to get along soon.