rm
Passport
- Family
- Angelfish
- Grows to
- 15 cm (5.9")
- Lives
- 10–12 years
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- Care
- Intermediate
- Swims
- Mid-water
- Keep
- One is fine
- Water
- 24–30 °C (75–86 °F)
BrazilGuyanaSuriname
Care requirements
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On record for Angelfish: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level, tank length.
A figure that is not on record is left out rather than guessed. One marked Suggested comes from keeping knowledge rather than a page.
- Minimum tank 151 L / 40.0 US gal
- pH 6–7.4
- Hardness 0–15 dGH
- Diet omnivore
- Tank length 100 cm minimum
Keeping notes
Peaceful, but a grown angelfish will eat a neon-sized tetra. Choose tank mates it cannot fit in its mouth.
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
An angelfish is a cichlid, and it's worth saying that before anything else, because they get sold as community fish and then go on to behave like cichlids. Peaceful for most of their lives, right up until a pair forms, claims a third of the tank and drives everything else into a corner.
They'll also eat anything that fits in the mouth. A full-grown angelfish and a neon tetra is one of the best-documented mistakes in the hobby — the tetras vanish one at a time and the keeper blames the filter.
They grow tall rather than long, which is unusual and ends up driving your whole tank choice.
Tank setup
Think about height first. This is the rare fish where a tall tank is genuinely the right answer — a mature angelfish is far deeper than it is long, and in a shallow tank the fins are cramped and often damaged.
Build them vertical structure. Tall plants, driftwood standing on end, anything that breaks the tank up into columns. They evolved among flooded roots and branches and they use vertical cover the way other fish use caves.
Plan for the pair, because it's coming. Keep a group and two of them will eventually pair off, and the tank has to be big enough for the rest to stay out of the way. You can't prevent it and you can't predict which two.
Feeding
Angelfish are omnivorous and not remotely fussy. A quality flake or pellet as the staple, with frozen bloodworm, brine shrimp and daphnia going in regularly — they take live and frozen food with obvious enthusiasm.
They feed at the surface and in mid-water and won't go chasing anything down on the substrate.
Avoid: dried food alone over the long term, which shows in their colour and in breeding condition. Bear in mind too that live food conditions them into spawning, which may not be what you were after.
Filtration and flow
Give them moderate, well-maintained filtration and gentle flow. They come from slow water, and long fins don't cope well with a strong current.
They're more sensitive to water quality than their reputation for hardiness suggests, especially as juveniles. Nitrate creep will show up as clamped fins and faded colour long before it shows up as anything more dramatic.
With plants
Safe with plants and better off among them, particularly broad-leaved species, which they'll use as spawning sites and as cover.
Amazon swords and similar are the natural pairing — tall, broad, and exactly the shape they want to spawn on.
Health
Angelfish are prone to hole-in-the-head: pitted lesions around the face and lateral line. It's tied to poor water quality, nitrate and an inadequate diet rather than to one specific pathogen, and it reverses if you catch it early and fix the husbandry behind it.
Those long fins make them a target for nippers, and fin damage on an angelfish is usually somebody else's fault. Check the tank mates before you treat the fish.
They'll take ich during temperature swings, as most cichlids do.
Breeding
This will happen by accident in a community tank, and then it becomes the tank's main event. A pair cleans off a vertical surface — a leaf, a slate, the heater, the glass — and lays in neat rows.
They're attentive parents and they'll defend those eggs against everything, which is the moment your peaceful community stops being peaceful.
First-time pairs commonly eat the first few clutches. That's normal rather than a sign of bad parents, and they usually get the hang of it within a few attempts.
Tank mates
Avoid15
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and Angelfish is peaceful and easily intimidated.
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid is aggressive and Angelfish is peaceful and easily intimidated.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid is aggressive and Angelfish is peaceful and easily intimidated.
- Least Killifish Angelfish grows to 15 cm against Least Killifish at 2 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Neon Tetra Angelfish eat small tetras.
Only with care28
- Amano Shrimp Angelfish is a risk to Amano Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
- Bamboo Shrimp Angelfish is a risk to Bamboo Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
- Blue Bolt Shrimp Angelfish is a risk to Blue Bolt Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
- Blue Dream Shrimp Angelfish is a risk to Blue Dream Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
- Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp Angelfish is a risk to Cardinal Sulawesi Shrimp: angelfish and shrimp and yabbies are a pairing to watch.
No conflict is recorded with the other 63 species in the database, so nothing to flag. 2 species are not covered at all, so they could not be judged either way.