The angel thread to end all angel threads: all owners of angelfish in reefs respond!!

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Originally Posted by humaguy

pia has a beautiful individual...

Hmmm. Wish I knew how to sex these guys.

[Dmorty217]

1. Coral Beauty 2. clams,sps, lps, softies, rics, zoa. 3. Reef safe 4. 4months
2. Juv Emperor. " "

[beachbreak]

Potters: sps picker resulting in poor PE but all corals are healthy and growing. Occasionally does damage down to skeleton but it is quickly grown over. Ignores everything else
Flame: occasional slime picker - completely random and spread out amongst sps, lps, softies and zoas
Annularis: will eat the skirts off of palys and certain zoas.
Swallowtail: picks at gorgonians but doesnt injure
Bellus: ignores everything

[aandfsoccr04]

I'm going to bump this to the top for some more responses.

[luisgm]

65g, sps and some lps. crocea clam. 1 flame, 1 argi, 1 watanabe and 1 potteri.
potteri wreacking havoc in lps (chalices) and clam. not only picking, but tearing apart... everybody else safe till now.

[nonimmigrant]

Can't believe I did not respond sooner:

Multibar pair, interruptus pair, golden pyg pair, false shepardi, potters pair... the only ones that i see religiously doing anything are my multibars grazing over the sps. I'll see bite marks, but nothing that does not self repair.

[Tanu]

Pygoplites diacanthus or Regal angel: meaty lps like Trachyphyllia and Lobophyllia are fishfood, Zoanthus is eaten like popcorn. Other lps and sps: nothing serious. In my posession for 10+ years. Eats from my fingers like a pet.

Chaetodontoplus septentrionalis or Blueline angel: I bought him after the regal, so I did not try him will anything I can't keep with the regal. Further comparable to the regal. In my posession for 3+ years. Nice fish, slightly agressive sometimes.

Paracentropyge multifasciata or Multibar angel: I have a pair. One from Vanuatu: nearly a model citizen. One probably from somewhere else (less yellow between the bars) and this one nips sps, but not too serious. It also irritates the blue squamosa bringing the smallest Chaetodon mitratus on bad ideas... Interesting behaviour, the oldest one was bought abput 3 years ago, the second abput 18 months ago from a fellow reefer. They like each other and do court, but I didn't see them spawn yet.

Personally, I love to have a combined fish/reef-tank so apart from feeding the fish very well and keeping the corals in top-condition (which both decreases the appetite for nipping) I try to choose fishsafe corals instead of reefsafe fish

[Alberta-newb]

Not to hijack, but have to comment.

Wow Tanu, stunning tank! Is that a mitratus butterfly on the left and a flavocorantus (yellow crown) near the top?

Francis

[Mont67]

Potters angel- I had him for a few months with no problems
Flame angel- I had him for a while with no problems
Juv. Annularis- Only had him for a month but no problems

Going to try my luck with a goldflake

[Sacohen]

1. What kind of angel Flame Angel
2. Wether it was reef-safe Not considered "Reef Safe", but I never had a problem with either of the 2 I have owned.
3. If it was not reef-safe, what did it eat? N/A

[homebrwr]

Great thread. I was searching for info on reef safe angel fish and I was lead here. Awesome info!

[mattsilvester]

Is there an updated version of this spreadsheet? Seems like a fantastic resource, especially if constantly evolving.

[LobsterOfJustice]

I can work on updating it one evening this week.

[mattsilvester]

That would be excellent.

At the moment my main interest is flame angels - but I'm setting up a new tank, so right now I' gobbling up all info I can on the subject of angels in reef :-)

[Temeraire]

I have a Koran Angelfish. I've seen him nip at one of my hard corals a few times but that's it.

[LobsterOfJustice]

All data entered.

[Dkuhlmann]

Cherub Angel reef safe w/LPS and Softies (eats SPS like candy)
Coral Beauty reef safe w/LPS and Softies (didn't have any SPS)
Flame Angle reef safe w/LPS and Softies (didn't have any SPS)
My Emperor Angel was in FOWLR

My Cherub totally destroyed my few SPS that I had in my mixed reef but doesn't bother my LPS or Softies

[mattsilvester]

Originally Posted by LobsterOfJustice

All data entered.

Great work, and very interesting data! Thank you!

Interestingly, if you process the data a little bit to exclude the species with a sample size of less than 10, and a safety rating of >80%, then you get some very interesting results. For example, Asfur comes in at number 8 above flame and bi-colour and is only 4.5% more risky than a cherub which has a reputation for being one of the most reliable reef safe angel species; and the regal angel doesn't even come in the top 10!

Once again, I must thank you for the hard work and great effort putting this spreadsheet together. Anyone with the most basic computer skills can easily manipulate this data to their personal criteria, to customize their level of risk.

[LobsterOfJustice]

Originally Posted by mattsilvester

Great work, and very interesting data! Thank you!

Interestingly, if you process the data a little bit to exclude the species with a sample size of less than 10, and a safety rating of >80%, then you get some very interesting results. For example, Asfur comes in at number 8 above flame and bi-colour and is only 4.5% more risky than a cherub which has a reputation for being one of the most reliable reef safe angel species; and the regal angel doesn't even come in the top 10!

Once again, I must thank you for the hard work and great effort putting this spreadsheet together. Anyone with the most basic computer skills can easily manipulate this data to their personal criteria, to customize their level of risk.

Yes, I think the data shows some very interesting trends. One of the main things to note is that most of the angels fall in to the 70-85% range. People will casually say that angels are a "50/50" risk, but clearly that is not the case. I'll take 75% odds over 50% any day. Notable exceptions are the eibli and lemonpeel, which I think we can confidently say are some of the least safe additions.

The other thing to pay attention to is the notes on the fish. In general, I based the decision of reef safe or not reef safe on two criteria: eating/bothering more than one type of coral, and the owner's tone on the fish. There are plenty of fish that were counted as reef safe in this spreadsheet that pick on coral. Even some that eat particular types of coral. But if the owner said "yeah, he picks on SPS but the damage is minimal" I counted that as reef safe with a note that the fish picked. Other people might have described the same fish as "that little bugger nipped every SPS and had to go". The second would have been counted as not reef safe. For example, you'll notice that Flames are 80% safe (a number which has held stable since the early days of the spreadsheet), but a large number of those fish nip with little to no damage, or nip only one type of coral. Another example is Regals, which as you noted are not even in the top 10 safest fish, however that is mostly due to eating zoas and some LPS. NONE have been reported to bother SPS.

I would strongly suggest people who observe fish nipping take time to notice if the fish is actually doing damage - I think a lot of people see one or two nips and immediately label it not safe. I also think that well fed fish are less likely to nip, and healthy corals are less likely to be nipped - and less likely to be damaged from occasional nipping that does happen.

As for myself, I currently have a regal that does not pick on anything. He barely even picks at the rocks, which is weird. From the spreadsheet you can see that regals are likely to eat zoas - of which I don't have any (because a Regal has always been in the plans). I do have some palys that he doesn't bother.

I also have a little 2" Majestic who hasn't touched anything yet, but he's been in the tank less than two months so I haven't added his data to the sheet yet. Again, I have set him up for success - Pomacanthus seem partial to open brains and acans, of which I don't have any, because a Majestic has also always been in the plans.

[mattsilvester]

I'd really like to try a regal as well. A bit concerned about my clams however! Any thoughts?

[ReefWreak]

I'm glad mattsilvester mentioned this thread in another thread.

1. What kind of angel - Flame Angel
2. Whether it was reef-safe - Yes, reef safe
3. If it was not reef-safe, what did it eat?

I have my flame angel in a 29g SPS-dominated biocube with 2 clams, a T. Maxima and a T. Derasa and lots of acropora. It peruses the tank all day long nipping at everything, but my acros have surprisingly good PE (full PE), and my he does occasionally nip the mantle or shell of the clam, but it is rare, and hardly considered harassment, he just nips everything a bit. He has been happy in there for almost a year now, and the clams about 8 months for the maxima and 2 months for the Derasa.

He came from a 34g solana cube where he also didn't eat coral.

I have also had a rusty angel and coral beauty angel in my old 120g tank, and they did not pick at SPS (acropora, montipora) nor the crocea clam. My Dejardini sailfin tang picked on the clam more than the centropygaes ever did.

[Spartan]

LoJ - super kudos to you for compiling all that!

Least I can do is add a data point. Emperor in my softy tank I think 2 years before I lost him. Ate zoos but no issues with other soft corals.

[Giovanni]

Mixed reef.

Potters that does not bother anything.
Golden that nips at brains but does not seem to hurt them.

[mattsilvester]

LoJ. Not sure that I contributed previously or not.

1. Had an emperor. Juv. thorugh to 8". Ate everything including leather, sps, and star polyps.
2. Flame with softies for about 1 year+. model citizen.
3. Regal for about 6 months in a mixed reef. model citizen.
4. Majestic for about 6 months in a mixed reef. model citizen.
5. Blue Face for about 6 months in a mixed reef. model citizen.

Meanwhile, I picked up a nice flame. Now in Q-tine. I'll report back in due course.

[acesq]

Here's my experience:

340 gal mixed reef:

Regal Angel - 1.5 years - eats chalices and pectina, leaves zoas LPS and SPS alone

Interruptus Angel - 1.5 years - does not touch any corals

Multi-barred Angel for 8 months (re-homed) - ate chalices and nipped at LPS did not touch zoas or SPS

Flagfin/Goldflake hybrid Angel for 1 year (re-homed) - at chalices, pectina and LPS, did not touch zoas or SPS