Angel Fish

[Asully70]

I have 2 angel fish in my 29g tank. One is a black and greyish one and the other is a golden one. The golden one seems to be perfectly happy and healty but the black one seems to be weaker. His fins look like they have been nipped at (the top one and the back fin). He swims and eats fine but he just inst as active as the golden one and is a little slower. Does anybody know what could be causing this to happen?

[welchrock]

If he's fairly new to you, he likely was nipped and pestered at the store. Otherwise it's probably your dominant Angelfish that is causing the damage. With some luck, this should subside the longer you have the fish.

Fin rips and tears take ages to heal, sometimes 2-3 months or more. You may be able to facilitate the healing by a)making sure your healthy angelfish isn't too much of a bully and b)using a food-based medication. I personally have had good luck with Gel-Tek Tetracycline, but that's just me.

http://www.petsolutions.com/Gel-Tek-...707006+C1.aspx

The medication contains a substance that makes the food more appealing, so the benefits you see from it may be two-fold, because your weaker fish will be inclined to eat more than it typically would.

Good luck and keep us posted!

[Betta1]

I had a pair of angels in my 29g tank that started as 4 (when two paired I moved them out). But the tank was rather overstocked and one day my black angel just started getting it's fins nipped. I started taking fish after fish into the LFS trying to figure out who was doing it and in the end it was the other angelfish. The black one was real passive and peacefull and the gold one is the one that started nipping. Since then I've traded in the gold one and upgraded to a 75g where the pair and other angels have been introduced and the once peacefull black angel has since taken the mated male and become much more dominant, though I'm seeing her peacefull side come back.

What do you have for tank mates? I started wanting an angel only tank and though it was incredible to watch them interact it was simply to intense. I found that rainbows and gouramis make a great addition to angels, the rainbows are so care free that they help diffuse the aggresion while not recieving any themselves. The gouramis have a somewhat similar attitude and body language so they in ways calm the angels.

I've spent alot of effort getting the aggression down between my once mated male and female and all I can say is try some different things out. Various tank arrangements, different tank mates and simply time will change the attitudes and interactions of angels.