# Angelfish.. not what I remembered



## Cory (May 2, 2008)

Well, I've been living with Angelfish now for a few weeks and besides being constantly amazed by their beauty and grace as I stare at them from my computer desk I am amused by how different they are from the fish I remembered. 

The last time I owned angels was more than 10 years ago when I was 11 or 12 and at the time my parents and I worked together to kill lots and lots of fish through our ignorance. I was able to keep guppies alive and a few other really hardy species but when we bought some pretty angels we killed them within a few days as I recall. Forever after they were a dainty fish, delicate and slow moving, very fragile. As I came into the hobby when I got older I realized of course this wasn't the case but that lingering impression was nonetheless there. 

It's for that reason that whenever I see these fish cruising around the tank at high speeds for food, fighting over territory and just generally thriving and being so active I get a little rise out of it. They just do not look the part they play with their slender, elegant forms. Despite being smaller than what I thought was breeding size a pair has formed and they seem to be constantly on the lookout for a site to lay eggs. While I did want to breed them down the road, I don't have a tank to dedicate right now and since the pair formed the angels don't swim together anymore which was really nice to watch. 

Still though, it is fun to watch the pair swim around together often synchronized. They sometimes squabble over this open area in the corner of the tank with the German Blue Ram pair in the tank which is funny to watch. Even better was watching an angel and a rosy barb go at it today. I've never seen rosy barbs fight anything.. but this girl squared off with the angel for a good 15 seconds again over that open patch. 

Even as I am moving to cut back on the number of cichlids I keep and breed angels are pulling me back in. I'd been planning on a bunch of new barbs and tetras, some wild livebearers and a handful of micorasboaras but now Im pondering more angels... I definitely don't have enough tanks!


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Some types are hardier than others, but in general they are not a difficult fish. To grow large they need clean water and loys of food. Still my favorite.


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## Cory (May 2, 2008)

Definitely not the dainty fish I remembered . Of course, they never were dainty, our fish keeping practices back then just sucked. These angels are pretty lucky though that they made it into one of my display tanks lol. The display tanks, unlike breeding setups usually get 25% daily water changes vs. 30% weekly in breeding tanks because I don't tolerate even the slightest appearance of dirtiness in my show tanks . Seems the remaining koi angel formed a loose pair bond with one of the much smaller black angels in the tank so now I don't have any loner angels lol. I really love them though it frustrates me that I don't have another 7 or 8 tanks to devote to angel breeding .


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## bluekrissyspikes (Apr 16, 2009)

i love angelfish too. i just have the one at the moment. he's really big and mean so he has his own 55. hopefully he lives a long happy life in there. when he does eventually pass on i'm going to get some of those amazing black pinoys special ordered for me.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

As an interesting side note, A friend of mine who works at Big Al's tells me that they have more problems keeping domestic angels alive than the wild caughts. It oesn't take them long to settle in and take on the begging for food habit of domestics. The other fish they have difficulty with is the fancy guppy.


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