Angelfish Species #1

Pterophyllum Altum

Oh Dear Lord! If you are on a desktop computer, you can see the Godzilla sized image on wikimedia by tapping the image above then tapping the image that shows up in a new window or tab. 

A species of Angelfish that you can find and purchase online is the Pterophyllum Altum. I haven’t seen this species hybridized. This probably is for two reasons.

Of interest about this “wild angel” is that most Altum fish that are available in the trade are “captive bred”.

Angelfish Species #2

Pterophyllum Leopoldi

When writing this article, This angelfish species is not readily available to purchase online. I suspect the main reason for this is that they are not as attractive as the other two Angelfish species. They have a slightly more streamlined body (less tall), a golden/tan base color and a couple of light grey stripes.

All that said  if you want to own some boring looking angelfish then tap here. Hate bragging rights? Buy these fish.

Thanks Wikimedia!

About the image above:

To view the high resolution (2.7 MB) image (What?? – I know, right?) of the angelfish above, tap on the picture. Image opens in a new tab or window.

You can use either image on your website, if you link back to mine:

https://plantedaquariumexpert.com/angelfish-new-concepts/

⇒ You can use the awesome images on this page on your website (just link back to my site).

Sure, you can find these pictures online if you have a few hours, but why bother. There here already. Guaranteed copyright free. Just link to this page. 

Important: If there is an link under the image (usually eBay), that link must be copied and pasted near the image your borrow. We’re giving credit where credit is due.

Last thought: Do yourself a favor and view these pictures on a desktop computer. 

6.  Angelfish – Where do they live in the wild (originate)?

This tropical fish comes from the Amazon River Basin in South America.

As I was doing research, I noticed that Angelfish were inhabiting the slower moving river-banks and streams.

They prefer to cluster around fallen tree branches. I noticed that two different species of Angelfish were inhabiting the same dead tree. You can see this here: https://youtu.be/DPcViFxtU94?si=tVSbtc9sSj00ufKG

One of the more interesting things I learned while verifying origins is that in the wild, Angelfish may live in water with a pH down to 3 (vinegar has a pH of 2.5 to 3). To get your aquarium pH that low you’ll need to start with reverse osmosis water.

The habitat of the Angelfish provide an excellent outline of what they need/want in an aquarium.

7.  Angelfish Behavior

There are three reasons Angelfish are so popular: 1. They are physically attractive, and 2. they also “appear” to have friendly personalities, and they are easy to take care of. 

I’ve kept this fish in the past and I’ll share with you what I’ve learned about their behavior.

Angelfish always beg for food. When they see their human, they swim up to the front of the tank and do short, back-and-forth swimming motions. Sometimes they are begging for fish food and sometimes they have their human trained to throw food in the aquarium when they swim like that.

For the most part, Angelfish aren’t aggressive with their tank mates. As long as the other fish can’t fit in the Angelfish’s mouths, they will leave them alone.

This changes if you have a mated pair of Angels. They don’t want other fish near their eggs and will aggressively protect the area around where they’ve laid eggs, in this case the aquarium. This can lead to the other fish stressfully cowering in the corner of the tank. Stress kills fish, so this situation is undesirable.

The best thing you can do it either move one of the pair to a different tank, or move both of the pair to a different tank in hopes of having baby angelfish. I’ll go over breeding in depth, further down the page.

Black Angelfish

This fish can be purchased on eBay. Tap to view and buy.

8.  Setting up an aquarium for freshwater Angelfish

Here are a few items to consider for an Angelfish aquarium setup.

Cycling The Aquarium

Most hobbyists already know what this is. In a nutshell, you set up the aquarium and have it fully running but you don’t put fish in it. You will place a bit of dried fish food in the aquarium every day, as if you were feeding fish. What you are actually doing is feeding the beneficial bacteria that break down toxic waste (in this case “uneaten food”), into the less harmful product called nitrates.

Leave the aquarium with no fish for about two weeks. By that time, the bacteria colony will be large enough to do the job that they are there for.

Add A Water Conditioner

In writing this, I am going to assume that like most water companies, yours adds chlorine or chloramine to your tap water. They do this to kill bacteria that might harm people. Unfortunately, these chemicals kill tropical fish.

We need to neutralize the chemicals to make the aquarium water safe for fish. To do this, you will want to use a water conditioner.

There are many types of aquarium water conditioners available. I’ve used API Stress Coat+ for 30 years and can highly recommend it.

Lighting

Angelfish will not be picky when it comes to lighting. The only time lighting will probably matter is when a mated pair is spawning or caring for eggs, wigglers, or fry. If that’s the case, then lowering the light intensity is suggested. Subdued lighting will mimic what the pair would experience in their natural habitat and hopefully keep them from eating their eggs or offspring. (Looking for aquarium lights? Try this Amazon page.)

Filtration

The filtration I’ve used for years is a large canister filter with a high quality, inline UV sterilizer attached to the return hose of the canister filter. This set up filters the water and also controls harmful bacteria, pathogens, parasites, and algae.

Your filtration system will not be a cure all setup. You are also going to need to do 75 to 90% weekly, or more often, water changes. Combining the two will probably be as good as it will get for a closed aquarium.

I have used Fluval Canister filters for years. I own two currently. 

Decorating Your Angelfish Aquarium

There are two different ways to go when decorating your Angelfish aquarium:

1.  A natural habitat setup or

2.  What most hobbyists will do.

Natural Habitat setup

If you observe angelfish in the wild, they live in very slow-moving blackwater streams. Blackwater is low in pH and high in tannins from rotting vegetation.

Usually, there are no observable plants.

There are only three things seen, besides the fish and water.

1. Tree branches – Angelfish congregate near large branches of dead trees that have fallen into the water.

2. Leaf Litter – The bottom of the streams are covered in dead, rotting leaves.

3. Biofilm – a collection of bacteria and other micro-living organisms that cover the dead tree branches the Angelfish live near. Angelfish may nibble on biofilm as a food source.

So if you want a truly natural setup for your Angelfish aquarium, do this:

1.  Place leaves on the bottom of the tank. Let them rot.

2.  Add driftwood.

3.  Use reverse osmosis water to provide the softest, lowest pH, water that you can.

Hobbyist setup

You can use any normal aquarium items you want to build out your aquarium. As a long time hobbyist, you might use natural colored gravel, stones, possibly driftwood and plants. Any of these items would help create an environment you would find attractive.

Personally, if I had an empty tank for Angelfish, I would create a 100% natural setting for the Angelfish I placed in my aquarium.

Water conditions and your Angelfish

Setting up the correct water conditions

1. Angelfish can adapt to your tap water as long as it’s drinkable (I.E. your water isn’t toxic).

2. As per normal for tropical fish set the water temperature at 78 degrees F. or 25 degrees C.

3. Deep Diving into water conditions: If you want to provide your angels with water similar to water in the wild, you would use reverse osmosis water (softwater) and maybe some sphagnum moss to help lower the pH.

Above: Panda angelfish

Good News! You can put a few of these beauties in your tank by tapping here.

9.  Deep Dive: Why these water conditions for your angelfish?

If you know anything about keeping South American tropical fish, you already know that their aquarium water should be 78 degrees F. (25 degrees C.) The pH should be as low as you can get it down to perhaps a pH of 5.

The question I would ask at this point is why are these two numbers always recommended?

The answer lies in the Amazon River Basin weather patterns.

The Amazon River Basin is a tropical rain forest area on and near the equator. It covers an area of 2,400,000 square miles. The size and location allows the Amazon River Basin to create its own weather.

Water temperature in the Amazon River Basin: A process called convective uplift actually regulates the temperature of the land and water. It is a simple process in which the sun warms the ground. Because of this warming, heat and water vapor rise. As the warm air hits high cooler air, clouds form and rain falls. This is a continual cyclical process that keeps the Amazon Basin temperatures at 73 degrees F to 83 degrees F.

PH of most of the waters found flowing in the Amazon River Basin: Green plants cover every square inch of the Amazon Basin. It rains in nearly every area, every day. In fact, on average, any area in the Basin receives 91 inches of rain per year. Rain water doesn’t have many if any minerals or hardness. It has a neutral pH as it lands. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannin#Extraction and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humic_substance)

Next, as plants die, often the plant debris goes into the rivers and streams. There is so much plant debris it is rare to see any clear body of water. As it rots, this debris releases Humic Acid (notice the use of the word acid) and tannins (acidic chemicals bound in the structure of live plant material, which is released from dead & rotting plant material). This rotting vegetation and the release of chemicals, including humic acid and tannins, into the water create “blackwater” which is very low in PH. In the amazon blackwater may be light tan to brown.

Aquarists can observe the blackwater effect by adding driftwood to their aquarium. The wood will turn the water a tea color and probably lower the pH slightly.

Other plant materials sold for aquariums to lower pH are Indian Almond Leaves, Mulberry leaves and Oak Leaves. Of course, you can collect these leaves on your own near where you live.

You can learn more about the waters of the Amazon Basin here: https://php.radford.edu/~swoodwar/biomes/?page_id=2052 and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_biome and last: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxisol

10.  Angelfish Tank Mates

There are a large variety of community fish to place with an Angelfish.

Image above: Honey Gorami

Be aware that if a tank mate can fit in the mouth of your Angelfish, that fish will be eaten.

Here are 10 suggestions for Angelfish companions:

*  Slow-moving fish about the same size as an Angelfish:

1.  Discus (Symphysodon Discus) – The only problem I see here is that Discus need warm water. This may not be a factor to the Angelfish. It also would be an interesting experiment to see how Angelfish do in warmer water.

2.  Bristlenose (Bushynose) Pleco – They mainly keep to themselves. Keep an eye on the sides of your angelfish to make sure they are not being chewed on by the Pleco.

3.  Pictus Catfish (Pimelodus Pictus) – Grows to 4.5 inches.

4.  Other Angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) – You can add more Angelfish to your tank, as long as you don’t over crowd the aquarium.

5.  Molly fish (Poecilia) Up to 3 inches.

Molly fish

*  Fish that stay to their own kind and won’t bother the Angelfish:

6.  Zebra Danios (Danio Rerio) or just about any other species of Danio fish. These are schooling fish so keep at least a dozen at a time.

7.  German Blue Rams –  Mikrogeophagus ramiezi – grows to 2.5 inches

8.  Keyhole Cichlids (Cleithracara Maronii) – Grows to 4 inches. Not common but available online.

9.  Golden Eye Cichlid (Nannacara anomala) – Grows to 2 inches. Not common but available online.

10.  Kribensis (Pelvicachromis Pulcher) – Not a South American Cichlid – up to five inches, but I’ve never seen them that big.

Image above: Kribensis – edited for clarity. Provided by Wikimedia.

There are many more fish types that will get along well with Angelfish. This is just a small sample.

11.  Feeding Angelfish

Warning: Don’t feed your fish frozen blood worms. They are too hard to digest and will kill your fish. I recently lost two good fish to that. Don’t do it. 

Towards the bottom of this essay I have presented information from a scientific study with excellent information about feeding angelfish. (http://keralamarinelife.in/Journals/Vol5-12/9%20Jayalekshmi%20et%20al.pdf).

In the meantime here are some basics to feeding Angels that also apply to many other species of freshwater Tropical fish.

Above: Flightless fruit flies

Types of Foods:

I have found that processed fish food is mainly grains rather than actual fish meal. I’m not necessarily saying that’s bad, but once I discovered this I changed what and how I feed my fish.

When I changed foods I noticed that my Tiger Barbs began mating in the tank almost every day.

I try to feed foods that have the main ingredient of either fish meal or insects. This means looking at the ingredients on the container of processed fish foods and choosing food that meets my criteria.

I have also switched to mostly frozen foods. If a package of frozen foods says brine shrimp, then it’s brine shrimp and little else.

How often to feed your Angelfish:

A good rule of thumb is to feed your fish twice daily. This is what I do and my fish are happy and healthy.

How much food should you feed your angelfish?

Again, tried and true rule of thumb is as much as they can eat in 5 to 15 minutes. This kind of depends on what you’re feeding them. Live brine shrimp will be gone in seconds, cooked veggies may sit ignored for hours.

12.  How to breed Angelfish successfully

Successfully breeding Angelfish by lowering their stressors

Breeding of angelfish should be fairly straightforward, but it’s not. I’ve had angelfish breed in my aquariums dozens of times. In every case, the parents ate the eggs.

That’s not a good outcome.

Here is what I would suggest if I wanted to breed Angelfish and wanted the parents to be good care takers to the fry:

1. Poor food as a stressor: Feed the breeding pair good quality mostly live or live-frozen food.
2. PH as a stressor: Have the correct pH: 5 to 6 is perfect. Above that, the parents are more likely to eat their eggs or the hatching fry will die more often
3. Movement in or near their tank as a stressor: Give the pair their own tank and make it so they don’t see movement in the room by blacking out the sides (For example: painting the sides of the aquarium).
4. Light as a stressor: Lower the lighting near the tank. In nature the lighting (sunlight) is dimmed naturally by the tannins in the water.

If you do all five steps above you will have a successful Angelfish breeding with healthy fry as the outcome.

13. Breeding Angelfish Video

14.  Angelfish diseases / illnesses – prevention and cures

Here is an excellent site for information on these diseases and other fish diseases: https://www.academia.edu/699360/A_ZFishDiseases

Links to Diseases:

Fish TB

Dropsy

Fin Rot

Pop Eye Disease

Fungus

Gill Disease

Hole-In-Head Disease

Ich

15.  Are You Truly Committed to Healthy Fish?  Aquarium Mastery for Experts and Beginners.

This is what I do and it really works. No ifs, ands or buts.

I (the author of the article) spent a year experimenting on how to keep freshwater aquarium fish healthy and alive. I’ve learned a lot and have had excellent results. Do the following and your fish won’t become ill. You’ll say “overkill” but I know what has worked. 

1.  Weekly 90% water changes. My (community well) water doesn’t have nitrates in it. I heavily treat the water with API Stess Coat +.

2.  I added a sump. It was a pain to start/set up but now I wouldn’t have an aquarium without one. One advantage: my sump setup super-oxygenates the water.

3. Get rid of most or all of the gravel. I know now that parasites and pathogen live in and grow in gravel.

4. I have two large Fluval cannister filters on my 30 gallon aquarium which are constantly running. I super clean the water.

5.  I have two expensive UV sterilizers hooked up to the output of the cannister filters. UV sterilizers are supidly expensive ($200 each as of this writing mainly because there is only one company that makes high-quality UV sterilizers). UV sterilizers are also fickle meaning the bulbs burn out much faster than the UV company says. They are supposed to last a year but I’m lucky to get five months out of them. Replacement cost for a bulb is $50. 

6. I feed my fish 2 times a day. I want fat bellies on all the fish. 

Doing these six items has allowed me to overstock my tank with 14 zebra danios, 5 tiger barbs, a female betta, a bristle nose pleco and some guppies. Everyone is fat, happy and healthy. 

Food type fed vs weight gain: