What are the odds?

What are the odds of me getting a reef safe flame angle fish? While they are known to eat coral, I've heard of some that don't. I'm sure I couldn't be this lucky lol.

 

I think there is a lot of misinformation being spread about dwarf angels.

Full-sized angels? Dont know of any that are reefsafe.

But as for dwarfs, in a large enough tank, with appropriate conditions, maintenance and feeding, these little guys can be model citizens IME.

 

65%

Well, idk, I can't give you a real number, but probably over 50% are fine. The key is to feed them a lot. This can be a problem though, as people tend to overstock their tanks, then have nitrates issues etc... and try to keep feedings minimal. Then the angel is hungry and develops a taste for your most expensive LPS corals or something... If your the type of person that is disciplined enough to keep stocking levels the odds are reasonably good.

 

agree 100% with you m2434.

Feeding is paramount.

I feed my fish at least two to four times daily - but they are multiple smaller feedings - somewhat more like their natural behaviour - to be feeding a little bit all the time.

Also, in nearly a year's time in a 150 gallon system - we have only stocked three fish: a tomini tang, sixline wrasse, and most recently a flame angel.

We only had a tiny bout with ich in the fall (common time for temp drops . . . ) which has since cleared up a long time ago with no chemical treatments of any kind. Just increased feeding.

We have an oversized skimmer with lots of flow.

All of these things allow us to feed pretty heavily while still maintaining good water quality.

We feed a mixture of:

Flake food
Nori Sheets
Arctipods
Spriulina Brine Shrimp
Mysis
Frozen herbivore blends

For the frozen food, we will prep up about a week's worth of food at a time.

We simply take half a dozen or so cubes and melt them/rinse them off with tapwater in a small fishnet. Once it has defrosted and been thoroughly rinsed of all the dirty water, two more final rinses with RO/DI water and we store the food in a small tupperware container with some fresh RO/DI water and we feed using a small pipette cut off at the tip for the large chunks of food to pass through.

Three or so times a week we feed nori sheets which are ALWAYS devoured immediately.

Feeding often has worked really well for me.

 

+1 to a later post. you need to make him feed a lot.

and how much % of your tank is cover in corals? more then 50%?

 

Also, from what I read, the dwarf angels are sort of like apex predators to corals: they tend to only eat the sick and dying ones because they are the easiest.

Now on the other hand - if there was some way to train the dwarf angels to eat common xenia . . .

 

Well I feed a cube of frozen brine and some dry food a day. I think the dry food is freeze dried krill and other meaty types and another is a herbivore blend.

 

are they spirolina brine? If not then there is not all that much nutrition in plain brine shrimp. Also, if you do not wash them off before you put them in the tank you are introducing all kinds of unessecary waste nutes.

What kind of fish are you feeding? Any herbivores? Omnivores? If so, you should consider offering some Nori sheets in between regular feedings.

Variety in food = greater nutritional profile and a better chance you will meet the various nutritional needs of the fish.

 

Well I have 2 oc clowns, a 6 line, and a ywg. The brine are probably just normal brine, where can I find nori sheets? Would I need to order them online or would a lfs have them?

 

i have had two flame angels and they both nipped at corals. However, they never seemed to do it enough that they bothered them. The exception were acans. they both seemed to find acans particularly delicious. i had to remove an acan frag with my old flame angel. i have two acan frags with my new flame angel and he does nip at them more than the other coral but it hasn't seemed to bother the acans too much.