Introducing Genicanthus Angel Pairs?

[Jolieve]

I got my female lamarck's angelfish yesterday. I have an opportunity to have my lfs order in a male, but I have been able to find little about angelfish pair bondings and how they work.

So um.. how do they work?

Is it safe to wait a month in between adding the female and male?

Thanks for your help!
J.

 

[Anonymous]

I would be uncomfortable adding them at separate times. If it is necessary, I would take out the female prior to adding the male, rearrange some of the rock work and re-introduce them both at the same time.

We have a pair of flame angels that we introduced at the same time when they both were very small and they have always gotten along great, but I don't know about pairing any other kinds of angels... but I'd love to hear how this works for you.

 

[Anonymous]

Genicanthus are unusually peaceful (as far as angels go). Admittedly I have no experience with what you're doing but you'll probably be OK.

How big of a tank?

 

[Anonymous]

Species of Genicanthus are protogynous hermaphrodites meaning the larger more dominate females will change sex to males though this will be inhibited by the presence of another male. They are not an aggressive genus and a harem of females with a male may be set up in larger aquariums.
You should be fine introducing a male to your female later.
As an aside, unfortunately these fish have a tendency to carpet surf.

Regards,
David Mohr

 

[Anonymous]

As an aside, unfortunately these fish have a tendency to carpet surf.

As an aside to David's aside, I have never seen a genicanthus angel jump, and I've been around about 100 of them, with 7 of those being ones that have been in my personal care for an extended period of time.

Peace,

Chip

 

[Jolieve]

Chip, my girl's a jumper. She jumped into the air several times when I went to remove her to the tank, she also jumped at the lfs when he was trying to bag her.

I think it might have more to do with the individual, which fish will jump and which will not.

J.

 

[Jolieve]

Oh.. in answer to Matt's question (sorry for the delay) tank is 75 gallons.

Tankmates atm are two ocellaris, a firefish, a green chromis a yellow tang, and the female lamarck's. I had planned to add either the male lamarck's or a pair of neon gobies. After that I want to add a sixline wrasse and an orchid dottyback and call it done for fish stocking.

I suppose that was kind of important and I should have mentioned it before. Apologies.

I didn't realize that genicanthus were more passive than other dwarf angels until I got to the lfs and the lfs owner told me how sweet she was. Then it hit me in the face, so I kept an eye on her for the evening after intro. The yt has left her alone for the most part, I figured that since he didn't kill my firefish on intro, he'd probably leave others alone if I just kept a close eye on the tank like I did before. He chased her out of his cave a couple times, but after the second time she got the hint and has avoided his cave since.

I hope this helps clear things up a bit.
J.

 

[Anonymous]

Regardless of peacefulness I wouldn't add another Genicanthus to that size tank. Heck I wouldn't have added the first one, except maybe a watanabei's. The Lamarck's gets something like 8-9" IIRC, and they need a lot of swimming room.

 

[Anonymous]

My female watanabei disappeared out of my tank. I never found her, but she might have jumped out.

 

[Jolieve]

Matt, several of the sites I read said these fish stayed small, I've always used those as a guide in the past, but now that I've been doing some more reading, I can see your concern.

I'll skip the male for the time being. The female is doing well in my tank for now, and I do plan to upgrade the system to a larger tank in the future. I didn't expect a yellow tang to be happy in a 75 forever.

Time for a good book on angels. Gah.. I feel like a dork for not checking into this deeper.

Another example of why not to believe everything you read on the net.

Thanks!
J.

 

[Anonymous]

Three good ones...

Angelfishes and Butterflyfishes by Steene and Allen

and Same title (but including many other families) by Scott Michael

and Angelfishes by Kuiter and Debelius

Michael's is best for aquarium care, but I don't think it included every single species.