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Anonymous

Guest
Can anyone tell me of their experiences using larger angel species in reef tanks. I have heard of a few successes but I am wondering if that is the minority.

Thank You
 
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Anonymous

Guest
G'day,
sorry, I've never kept any in my tank, but I've seen reef tanks with the Majestic angel (E.navarchus) in them, they don't seem to cause a problem. A bit touchy, so I hear. But I've never seen them cause any harm. My favourite is the Emperor, I had one for about 4 years in a FO, then he died when I was away
frown.gif
. He was a beautiful fish, ate everything, very tough, not overly aggressive (although he was the king), and one of the best fish I've ever owned. However, I don't know if I'd trust one in a reef tank. Anyone else? But back to the topic, the Majestic seem good.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
I keep an Asfur angel in my SPS reef with no problems. It does fine with the SPS. I have a few soft corals in there as well( star polyps, sarchophyton,xenia) which it also leaves alone. The only LPS I have in the tank is a 5 year old goniopora, which it doesn't bother either.
However, it did eat all the small fan worms it could get to. There are still alot in the tank and the sump, so the population stays steady.
As far as eating, the fish will eat anything. I feed a varied diet consisting of the Ocean nutrition formula frozen foods, flake, and vibra gro pellets. It eats them all. I will say that the fish is quite the bully during feeding time though. No physical harm has been done to the other fish, but it does chase them during feeding.
If you decide to add a large angel to your reef, make sure there are plenty of places for it to hide. When first introduced, my asfur was very timid, only darting out from the rock to grab bits of food. After about 8 months, it eats out of my hand.
In my opinion, nothing compares to a large angel swimming about in a reef. Most have awesome color and interesting personalities. Good luck.

------------------
#reefs channel operator
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Hi All

I am firmly of the beleif that fish of this size should be kept in nothing samller than a 10 foot by 3/4 wide tank MINIMUM.

It is cruel to do otherwise, I have seen a large Emperor and Queen in a six foot tank and it is a sad sight.They cannot swim fast/dart witouut reaching the other end of the tank immediately, natural behaviour, definitely not.

These fish need a lot of swimming space, space that the average domestic Aq. cannot provide.

They should be left to be kept in Public Aquaria or for the wealthy few who can provide them with enough space. Otherwise in keeping such an animal in your average aquarium, you are committing an act of cruelty.

I have a six foot tank and beleive after observing my resident Yellow Tang that it is Barely big enough for such a fish, any fish bigger in size, NO WAY !.


Cheers

Urchin
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Urchin makes a good point, most angels get too big for most hobbiest sized reeftanks. IMO, this includes the Queen, Emperor, Navarchus (majestic), French, Gray, and Koran angels.

Some hobbiests do have specimens of these fish that were purchased as juveniles, and they seem to be doing well, and not out growing the tank. It is still possible that they will in the future, but that remains to be seen.

Personally, I have tried keeping the navarchus and the regal angel in a reeftank. Neither of these fish should even be CONSIDERED to be purchased by beginning hobbiests, and in fact, the regal angel should probably not be purchased at all. IME, my navarchus was a coral picker, and I had to remove it from the tank and give it to a fellow hobbiest w/ a FO tank. The regal is much more "coral friendly" but the average regal angel you see in the store has about a 1-5% chance of survival...:-(

I would suggest sticking w/ Centropyge (pygmey) species.

HTH
James Wiseman

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Reefs.org Channel Operator
 
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Anonymous

Guest
I've kept a Navarchus in my 110 gallon system for 3 years. It was slowly converted to a reef system. Open brain type corals are not a good idea with this fish. Mine will occasionally nip at the tips of Montipora digitata and some Acropora, but never does any significant damage. If you just had one small colony in a tank it's conceivable that the angel could do a fair amount of damage, particularly if not fed regularly. What little damage my angel does is spread around the tank, and is insignificant.

- Greg Hiller
 

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