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A while ago I bought 3 angelfish (1 black, 1 yellow, and 1 white) all of similar sizes. I also got a few gouramis. My angelfish fish terrorized each other. The yellow one was the worst, terrorizing the black one and the white one. When the black one wasn't being terrorized you could find him terrorizing the white one. The white one eventually died. Then the yellow one terrorized the black one until I removed the black one into a hospital tank as he was near death. He was so weak I could just scoop him up with my hand and he didn't even try to get away. Then everything was fine for a bit until the yellow one terrorized my gouramis and killed them. I had read that angelfish were great community fish but maybe I missed something when I tried to keep them. I still have my black angelfish (healty as an ox) and I still want to try and keep angelfish in a community tank but I obviously need some serious help here.

Angelfish are cichlids that are a shoaling fish. Shoaling fish can be found in "loose" schools as opposed to "tight" schools of fish that tetras and smaller fish form. Cichlids are aggressive fish to other fish in their "territory".

Cichlid aggression in angelfish and discus, their cousins, is dispersed by raising the number of similar fish in a tank. IMO, the minimum number of discus or angelfish in a tank should be 5 or more fish to have enough "target" fish for the aggression. The magic number seems to be 5, with less than 5 fish, these cichlids form little gangs to terrorize the smallest or least bold fish.

You may have significant problems adding 4 fish to the tank with the surviving angel as that fish has marked the entire tank as his territory. Assuming the tank is large enough, you may want to add 5 angelfish and move the surviving angel to a hospital tank for two or three weeks. It will aloow the new fish to establigh territories and break the existing fish of its link to the territory. It will minimize aggression when adding the old angel back to the tank. You will also want to make sure that the angelfish are of roughly the same size.

An option will be to trade the surviving angelfish to your LFS for new stock.

Adult angelfish are like discus, they will require at least 10 gallons of water for each fish. This very rough rule of thumb is useful as a planning guide.



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