What to do about a nipping flame angel...

[Large Polyp Dave]

So I have a nipping flame angel in my tank. I've seen it do the "sucking" mouth action on a couple SPS corals here and there.

I have over 50 LPS pieces but for some reason it leaves my LPS alone.

I'm not even sure of it is because of the "nipping" but I don't have the amazing polyp extension like I've seen in some photos. But at night the polyp extentsion is decent.

So.... some couple questions.


a) How can I tell if my SPS are actually being nipped at by the angel? Will there be "bite marks" along the flesh?

b) Can a nipping flame angel cause this decreased polyp extension? And will the SPS corals not do as well beacuse of this nipping?

c) If the nipping flame angel will cause my SPS to starve/die, what is the best way to remove him?

I'm not sure if this helps for angel removal ideas but I have a pink tail trigger, regal tang, orange shoulder tang, purple tang., (and the flame angel)

(I've never actually seen the angel eat flake/pellet. It's always nipping at stuff on the rocks though and I've had it for a couple months so I'm assuming something is keeping it alive..)

Thanks guys

 

[Lunchbucket]

you will have to watch the flame. if he bothers the SPS enough they will not be happy and can go south in a hurry. they can and sometimes pluck polyps straight off the corals. keep an eye on him.

you will see a decrease in PE if he is nipping at them all day long. when he sleeps you will see more PE...but this does not mean that the angel is the only reason you don't have PE....but most likely


to remove him get a clear acrylic fish trap and use that to get him out.

such a beautiful fish...too bad they are buttholes sometimes

good luck
Lunchbucket

 

[Ready Salted Reefer]

Hey , I had the same problem with a flame angel. It would go from one colony to another doing exactly what you described . None of my sps would extend any polyps but there was no actual damage to the colonys and at night when the fish were asleep they would fuzz up real good . I dont think your sps will starve because they rely mainly on light .
Luckly when I moved house and had to break the system down the fish didnt make the shortlist when I set up again . Nowadays the polyps are better than ever and out all the time .
I would be inclined to try a trap as described by Lunchbucket above .
Hope you sort out your problem without too much trouble .

 

[Large Polyp Dave]

okay i'll try the trap thing. the worst thing though is i have no food that he'll eat.

he's just a rock nipper (and probably a coral nipper)



with so many other fish in my tank, how else can i catch him?

 

[bogg]

I've got the same drama going on, just recently added a flame and a juvenille queen, LFS called it a passers?. Polyp extension has really gone south. They are so pretty though I hate to take them out. I think I'm just going to see how it goes for now. Other ppls tanks have angels so ????

 

[calvinreef]

bate it with it's favourite acro if it ain't take food.

 

[clown2be]

They suck.

 

[Kinetic]

I've had this problem for months. I have a bunch of xenia, softies, LPS, and SPS. My flame angel ignored all corals for about a month and a half, then all of a sudden went to town. He killed off three digitata colonies, and 3 frags in one single day. He basically ate the tissues off the corals, all of it, and the polyps were never again to be seen.

He started nipping at my acro colonies, eating all of the tissue on one, leaving the others relatively unharmed. The others wouldn't send out it's polyps ever. I thought it would die.

After 5 months now, all my Montipora are dead, my open brain has a couple bite marks, but my Acropora are all doing REALLY well. They have tons of PE. I think the flame got tired of eating the acros, and he's a bit more behaved now. He did eat all the nassarius snail's "feelers" for some odd reason. Now they are all disoriented, kinda funny. Poor critters.

Otherwise my flame angel is great! I feed him spirulina flakes every day, so that seems to satiate his hunger.

Try doing that, and if your SPS start going "south", take him out.

Goodluck.

 

[Michael7979]

I had the same problem with a Atlantic pygmy angel. After having success with the acrylic trap that I borrowed from a LFS, I had alot better PE within a day or two.

No more angels in my tanks again and I always thought the angel was a good citizen. But just like you I caught him picking on a couple of corals one day and.........

 

[Zigzag Man]

I say take it out.

I recently (as like a week ago) had the same problem with a flame angel. The first two months I had it, it was the best-behaved fish, then it discovered that SPS polyps are 'angel crack' and started going to town. So, I trapped it and took it back to the LFS... IMO, I wasn't about to risk hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in coral for a $40 fish.

You gotta keep in mind that SPS polyps are part of the Centropyge diet, so it's actually out of the ordinary if they don't nip at them... and is certainly the exception, and not the rule.

I also had a problem with a Potter's Angel, but it was instead nipping my clam mantles. So, like Michael7979 posted... no more angels in my tank.

 

[Kinetic]

I decided against trapping my angel immediately. it's really beautiful, and has an awesome personality (other than it's eating habits).

So I'm waiting for my upgrade to the 82g display (150g total water system) before taking him out... perhaps put him in another LPS/Softies only tank, but no longer in a SPS tank.

Instead I'm getting a Genicanthus Bellus. Hopefully the planktivores will be better behaved.

 

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

all sane advice, "yank 'em...

 

[RichConley]

Is he doing any actual damage?

Centropyge angels will nip at basically every hard surface they can find. Hes just looking for algae and sponge. Unless hes destroying flesh, I woudlnt worry about him.

 

[Kinetic]

i've had a sponge in my tank for about 3 weeks now, and he hasn't touched it at all! my angel is a freak.

 

[Zigzag Man]

Well, the thing is that with most of our nutrient poor systems (hopefully) there won't be much to graze on the rocks, so when a Centropyge discovers that there's food to be had by grazing those pretty colored sticks, they tend to concentrate on them from that point onward.

At least that's what happened in my situation.

 

[Stephany]

Who says you can't train a fish?
By that question, I'm wondering... I'd love to get a flame angel in my tank, that does have a variety of sps, lps, etc.
If I decide to purchase a fish like a flame angel, and while I have him in quarantine... do you think I could put some of those fake acros in there...to teach him they taste like plastic... and make sure he's eating what I'm feeding before he gets let out?

 

[Zigzag Man]

I say you should electrically charge the SPS fakes... then you're almost assured that it'll get some negative reinforcement.

It might be worth a shot, but one of our local LFS has those fake sps in the fish holding tanks, and the angels are always nipping at them (probably to get the algae growing on them).

Keep in mind that you're trying to break them of their 'normal' behavior, which isn't going to be an easy task at all... and all it'll probably take is for them to nip at your SPS (or other corals) to discover that these corals are different (than the plastic ones) and they're YUMMY!

 

[chtan]

I think you shd take it out ..... unless you can tolerate some collateral damage ..... I have had flame angels in mixed SPS/LPS tanks and from my experience if they are well fed eventually they will stop destroying corals ... I say eventually because with my latest flame angel, it destroyed 4 to 5 pieces of cynarinas and lobo, one piece of digitata before it decided it did not want to eat corals anymore ... and it has not been nibbling on corals for the last 4 mths.