Blue-face angel berserk??

[Mykonos]

Hi fellow reefers, im currently running a 6ft fowlr tank but recently, many aggression issues have begun to surface among my angels, namely my blue face angel. Ive been keeping marine fish for about 3 years now, but ive always stuck to angels as im totally fanatic about them! This particular blue face angel is currently about 7.5 inches and the third largest in my tank.

The fishes i have in my tank are Queen,King,Majestic,Blue-face,Koran,Asfur,Cream,Emperor,Regal,Scribbled,a pair of watanabei angels, 2 blue tangs and a yellow tang. There has always been some small disputes among my angels, some flaring up of fins and they size each other up but never a death match..Recently my blue-face has been trying to kill my koran/ and my 9 inch emperor..its really becoming quite worrying, ive already removed the blue-face, stuck him in my qt for 3 weeks, allowed time for the koran and the emperor to regain their health and confidence, reintroduced but same problem again. Ive also tried rearranging the lr to redistribute the territories in the hope i could restore some peace but that did not work out either.

I know that certain individual angelfishes grow large and may not tolerate other angelfishes, but the tank is not overcrowded as only the blue face/emperor/queen are above 5 inches, whilst the rest are much smaller and allowing plenty of swim space and territory..the fishes are fed seaweed nori/pellets/chopped mussels/flakes and are all quite fat and healthy, so it is really disconcerting to see torn fins and stressed out angels in there, yet i find it hard to part with my blue face which has practically grown up in my tank!

Calling out to all the experts out there!! is there perhaps a method i have missed or something i may have been doing wrong that has caused this? Thanks in advance for any advice! =)

[leebca]

Thanks for posting.

What isn't clear is the size of your tank. You do mention it being 6 feet long, but just how many gallons does it hold. I suspect the tank is overcrowded.

Large Angels of the sizes you've mentioned are for 500+ gallon sized tanks. If for instance the 7.5 inch fish is the third largest, then that is a lot of inches of large Angels. Then, at 7.5+ inches, that fish is one for a 300+ gallon tank (8 feet long), but with multiples of these, that gets into a 500+ tank.

Many of the large Angels, some on your list for instance, eat the same types of food. They will see others as competition for the 'local' resources. They will fight for their right for space, food, and as they mature, breeding area. I think that is most likely what you are facing at this point.

I've seen tanks very tightly packed with Large Angels and other large fishes. It doesn't work out for long. If the owner is sensitive to fish 'attitudes' and watches what happens for many hours, the tension is obvious.

[Reefing Madness]

Well, your tank is 6' long, I'm guessing 125g?? ish??? And in 3 years time the ( to many fish ) have outgrown the tank, and are now getting into fights because they keep bumping into one another. From the fish that you have listed, you would need a 450g tank to house all those, and because of the size they are going to be.
Just an observation.

[Mykonos]

Thanks for the advice =), so i suppose i have overstocked my fish tank? my tank is about 1000 litres when i measured, so about 260gallons?

As i have mentioned previously, my largest three are actually my queen,emperor and blue-face, the rest are mainly below 5 inches, not large at all..
and my fishes are fed meaty chopped seafoods, angel forumula, nlf pellets and the list go on(i try to provide a wholesome diet) and lots of seaweed
soaked with selcon and vitamin c. I read up somewhere that feeding enough and with the right amount of nutrition fishes would be less agressive and perhaps more calm? My blue face has been with me fore about a year solid and my emperor and queen both 2 years plus.. they practically grew up together.. would the solution be to remove the blue-face altogether?

[Reefing Madness]

A 6' long 260g tank? See, when these fish get bigger its territorial. Its a big tank you have, but its not a big tank, they have no back and forth swim room, sound like they have alot of up and down room. But, for the interim, you'd probably want to take him out. But which one would be next? Sounds like a very nice set up though.

[Mykonos]

Thanks ^^..im afraid i would have to remove my emperor next if the blue-face goes..it just really saddens me to
part with these 2, especially my blue face!!! argh

[leebca]

So it's 6' long. Either its tall or maybe very wide. I always preferred the wide long styles -- more like a square base, but short.

The size of the tank is better than I thought, but it is still over crowded. Your thoughts of removing fish is good. Choose to remove the most beligerent first.