Red Sea Zebra Angel

[cmart28]

Saw a Red Sea Zebra Angel (Male) at my LFS, since I am looking to eventually purchase a reef safe Angel I wanted to know what the minimum tank size would be. Also if anyone has one what are your experiences with them? Thanks in advance.

[triggerfish1976]

They are planktivores in the wild thus are very active swimmers. They can also get rather large for an angel in this family (6-8") so I would not recommend that they go in a tank smaller than 6'l x 2'w x 2'h.
Like most of the other angels in this group, they are deep water fish and are not always collected properly. They usually show up in stores with swim bladder damage and have a hard time recovering from this. If the fish is having a hard time swimming I would avoid it. If you are running metal halides I would suggest that you leave the lights off for the first day and slowly increase the photo period back to your normal parameters over the course of a week or so. This will give the fish time to get use to the brighter lights. There have been documented reports of males turning into females if you do not house them in pairs. I have had a male Watanabei Angel w/o a female for 4 months and it has not changed but I have seen this in the Bellus and Pacific Zebra Angels.

[cmart28]

Thanks for the reply, I was thinking of adding a Watanabe male before I read of them changing to female, if not paired. My tank size would not be sufficient for a Zebra. I also saw a female Bellus, which I liked, want tank size for a Bellus?

[triggerfish1976]

A friend of mine has had a Bellus female for over 3 years and it has stayed fairly small (4" max) but it is still very active. I honestly believe that the Lamarcks is the only fish in this family that would be ok long term in your tank.