Rearing an Emperaotr Angel

I could only imagine

 

My tank approaches the coral skeleton days, although I am in the process of moving up and modernizing my tank. That said the oldest fish in my tank is an Emperator who I have had since my fish tank was 6 weeks old. I set up my tank over 12 years ago. When purchased the Emperator was less than 2 inches, and had full juvinile coloration. Today it is about 9 inches, still considerably smaller than some of the larger wild caught specimems. On one side he does have two spots of hole in the head which have been stable in size for years but are unsightly. I have heard that this is fairly common with these animals in captivity even if caught as full adults. He also has one deformed/underdeveloped pelvic fin which I might have missed when he was purchased or might be a nutritional deficit. The colors everywhere are as brilliant as the wild caught specimems, with the exception of the facial pattern the electric blue in the face is incomplete --- has breaks in the lines on his face. However, it took a couple of years for the fish to fully color up after changing to adult coloration. The hole in the head and possible the deformed fin could might have been helped by better nutrition that is more readily available/understood, than when this animal was changing colors. He also lived through 3 outbreaks of cryp, in the early years of the setup of this tank before I set up a quarantine tank. I added some live rock about five years ago. The tank is a 180 that was underskimmed durring the early years of the setup with a moderately sized wet dry. I performed 25% monthly water changes religiously and have fed Ocean Nutrition foods almost exclusively. My major complaint is not the coloration, the difference is not that significant from the wild specimems, but their susceptability to lateral line disease would enter my considerations.

 

Thank you very much for the reply! I soak in all accounts to get any insight possible. Im glad to see you were one the few to keep nice fish longterm. My lil' guy is just under 2" as well, feeding it mainly angel formula by ocean nutrition with sponge, live sponge when they come in at work, live gorgonian (havent had him long enough but i plan to give him it bi monthly) and brine shrimp. He also eats my copepods like he is starving. Until he hits 3-4" or starts sampling things he is in a 12 gallon reef by himself. Again thankyou for sharing with me.