# My Angelfish Experiment



## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

My Angelfish Experiment

This experiment/post was inspired from a response I received when I posed a question on this forum few days ago. I'm not very scientific but I will share my experience and update this post from time to time.

Here's the topic: Will angelfish view small fish such as cardinal tetras and pseudomugil luminatus as prey if they are introduced into the aquarium when the angelfish are young?

My hypothesis is: If you add small prey type fish to the aquarium when the angelfish are juveniles they will not be looked upon as a food source and will be ignored by the Angelfish when they reach maturity. This will not be the case if the angelfish are mature and fish smaller than the existing cardinals or Pseudomugils are introduced.

The angelfish I have were purchased online from Lee Gordon at https://angelmania.net/ (good seller/good communication.) There are six in total and they are about 9 to 10 weeks old (nickel sized bodies.)

The Aquarium is 75 gallons and has been running for about 4 weeks. It was set up to be low tech, it's heavily planted, and I have tried to follow the "Walstad method" to the best of my ability.

The angelfish have been living with 6 Panda Corydoras and a male. Two days ago I added 8 Red Neon Blue Eye Rainbowfish (Pseudomugil luminatus.) They are very small about ¾" and were purchased from https://www.bwaquatics.com/ (good sellers/good communication.)

When I first added the blue-eyed rainbow fish into the aquarium the angelfish were initially very curious and followed around the smallest ones. I noticed this predatory behavior so I immediately fed the angelfish flaked food. This changed their focus and they stopped chasing the new tank mates. As of today, I have not lost a Pseudomugil to predation. They are schooling nicely and the angelfish do not seem to be paying them any attention.

I have 15 Cardinal tetras on order from a local fish store and they will be going into my quarantine tank on Friday. I will update this post if I lose any small fish to predation and when I introduce new fish to the angelfish.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

You might be right. An interesting thing to notice is the small fish will be used to the angels too and won't freak out at the sight of these predators. 

You will likely add more little fish as they don't live as long as angels. The new little fish will freak out at the predators and they will trigger the angel's natural predator instincts. Chomp!


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

Good point. I would guess when the little fish die of old age that I would have to replace with adults of the same size.


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

Here's a picture of the angelfish and pseudimugils for reference...least one of them those little guys don't hold still 🙂


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Or the predatory instinct will kick in when anything moving fit their mouths.


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

I understand that Angelfish are predators but I also have found conflicting information on the web. Some people say angelfish can live in harmony with little fish if introduced at a young age. Some people say that they eat neons but cardinals are too big to fit in their mouths. Some people say that the cichlid instinct kicks in and they eat anything that small enough. This is why I started this thread…to document my experience with young angelfish, cardinal tetras, and other small fish. My only experience with this type of co habitation is what I see in my brother’s tank. He has one Lace Veil Tailed Angelfish that has been living with all sorts of tetras ranging for neons to Congos. Most seem to live no worse for ware but if he adds to his neon school the new additions have to be around the size as the adults in the tank or is dinner. I love my Philippine Blue Angelfish but I also really like the color of the Cardinal Tetras. I will keep large schools of the small fish so that there is safety in numbers and will keep updating my losses or victories as time goes on.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

This will be a very good experiment.


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

Well probably not the best time to add new additions because I'm still trying to figure out this plant growth thing but 26 cardinal tetras came out of quarantine and are in with the angelfish. They are now just shy of quarter sized and they seem to ignore the cardinals which are wildcaught and about 1/2 to 3/4 inch.

I did loose 1 small pseudomugil luminatus but it was not to predation she was sickly and languishing for few days and finally gave up her ghost.


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

Well I've gone and killed most of my cardinal tetras so I guess this experiment is over. I went and messed a good thing up by doing a 25 gallon water change yesterday (75 gallon tank.) The reason for the water change was because I noticed a patch of black beard algae on my large rock and on the ends of my Val. So I decided to brush it off of the rock and I trimmed my Val and I did a light glass cleaning (also turned down the intensity of my light.) I figured that since I have all the algae particles in the water I should do a water change; it's been a month since my last change and I noticed a dirt/soil smell in the water. I did not age the water because I only have two 5 gallon water jugs to do the change so I just added the water conditioner, filled the jugs, and added them one my one to the tank. The fish initially seemed very excited after the change but when I woke up this morning most of the cardinal tetras gave up their ghosts. Also my veil tailed angelfish has one cloudy eye. The other angelfish are thankfully okay. I checked my water perimeters and noticed that ammonia has went from zero to 0.5 or 1(shade of lime is so close to either value.) My GH went from 9 to 10 or 11, KH remained 7, PH creeped up to 7.8 or 8 (can't tell colors so close.) nitrates and nitrites are both zero. 

Why do you think the ammonia spiked and why was this water change so devastating to my live stock? I'm really disappointed in myself


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Cardinals don't do well in pH that high from what I remember.

Not sure why the spike in ammonia. Is this a dirted tank? What filter are you using?


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

It is generally a good idea to use a dechlorinator when you add more than about 10% of new water. Almost all tap water has chlorine or a mix of chlorine and ammonia, chloramine, in it. Both are very bad for the fish if you don't add a dechlorinator that works with chloramine, with the new water very soon after adding the water. That would account for the small increase in ammonia in the water. (The dosage of dechlorinator needs to be based on the total water, not just the added water.)


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

Yes this is a dirted tank and has been going since March. My Ph was about 7.6 before the change and the cardinals were Okay. I would say the change in PH is what did in the cardinals but they arn't the only fish effected. A few of my female bettas look like they are not feeling too hot and the vailed tail angel fish has a white film over his left eye. The other angels are fine. I did not disturb the substrate so I don't know why the ammonia spiked.


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

hoppycalif said:


> It is generally a good idea to use a dechlorinator when you add more than about 10% of new water. Almost all tap water has chlorine or a mix of chlorine and ammonia, chloramine, in it. Both are very bad for the fish if you don't add a dechlorinator that works with chloramine, with the new water very soon after adding the water. That would account for the small increase in ammonia in the water. (The dosage of dechlorinator needs to be based on the total water, not just the added water.)


I did use a dechlorinator/ conditioner (API tap water conditioner) that was for both chlorine and chloramine but your saying I should dose it based on 75 gallons instead of the 25 gallons changed.


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

mistergreen said:


> Cardinals don't do well in pH that high from what I remember.
> 
> Not sure why the spike in ammonia. Is this a dirted tank? What filter are you using?


I'm using power head with a quick filter.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Chris829 said:


> I did use a dechlorinator/ conditioner (API tap water conditioner) that was for both chlorine and chloramine but your saying I should dose it based on 75 gallons instead of the 25 gallons changed.


As I understand it, the reason for dosing for the total water is to get the concentration of the dechlorinator high enough for it to be effective. So, I always dose for the full tank, and the bottle directions (Seachem Prime) say to do so.

EDIT: I googled a bit and found this in the Seachem website: 
"Re: How much PRIME is too much?

Thank you for your questions. The standard dose of Prime (5mL per 50 gallons of water or 2 drops per 1 gallon of water) will only detoxify up to 1ppm ammonia.

It is completely safe to do a double dose of Prime in order to detoxify higher levels of ammonia. In fact, in emergency situations, up to 5 times the recommended amount of Prime is safe. In your case, when changing your betta's water, I would recommend adding 4 drops of Prime per gallon of tap water, in order to detoxify the incoming ammonia. As I said, this is very safe for your fish."


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

Thank you Hoppy! I just just followed your suggestion and dosed the tank as recommended. I home that does the trick. In the future I will buy more jugs and age the water for a few days before I do a change.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

You can also use vitamin C to neutralize Chlorine & chloramine. It doesn't neutralize ammonia leftover from chloramine though.
1/4 tsp per 100G will neutralize 1ppm of chlorine, which is how much most municipals add.

I run my tap water for the aquarium through a duel stage carbon house filter. It takes care of any chemicals. I tested how efficient it is and used the water on my daphnia tank. The daphnia survived.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Chris829 said:


> Thank you Hoppy! I just just followed your suggestion and dosed the tank as recommended. I home that does the trick. In the future I will buy more jugs and age the water for a few days before I do a change.


You can get rid of chlorine by "aging" the water, but not the ammonia. The ammonia will remain there until you do something to remove or neutralize it. Since there is no harm done by using Prime or an equivalent dechlorinator, even with overdosing it, it makes the most sense to forget the "aging" and always use the dechlorinator. As I understand it, aging doesn't help at all in getting rid of chloramine. In fact, the reason chloramine is so superior to chlorine is because of its stability.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Check with your local waterworks if they use chlorine or chloramine. You can usually find a water report on their website.


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## FlatfishTanker1 (Mar 13, 2020)

I'm no expert, But is it possible that your aquarium had not actually cycled yet before you added a pretty heavy load of fish? A large bio load will contribute a lot of ammonia to the water column, and you may not yet have the correct bacteria in place to deal with it. Ammonia is deadly.


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## Chris829 (Mar 24, 2020)

It has been a while so I thought I'd give an update since my last post in July when I killed most of my Cardinal Tetras with a water change. I added another school of 22 cardinals and school of 7 velvet swordtails. The angelfish have not shown any aggression towards the tetras or adult swordtails but the little swordtail fry do get fed upon which I suspected. The angelfish are about 8 months old and I find it interesting to watch the change in behavior. They have transitioned from a tight school of 6 to segregated groups. The 3 marbles hang out on the left side of thr 75 gallon tank and the veil tail zebra and silver ghost hang out on the left. The solid black/panoy parabia one gets left out of either group and has staked out the middle of the aquarium. Their aggression towards each other is mainly charges and posturing and they still come together at feeding time.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Thanks for the update, as I have been curious about this thread with your experience that resulted in some kill off. I really like cardinal tetras; they add a LOT of color to a setup. I've gone back and forth with the idea of having them in my new setup, but worry that IF my eventual Apistos breed they will pick off the fry one by one.


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