Angelfish just killed glass catfish!

Industrial

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Oct 29, 2009
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Buffalo, NY
On Saturday I found a small glass catfish at a LFS and he was the last one left so I bought it to add to my school.

Today I come home to find him pale white, missing a whisker and with torn fins! While I was looking at him I saw one of my small black angels nip at his tailfin and then the other two joined in really quickly for a quick assault.

Now I remember when I had two glass catfish a few months ago and the morning after I bought them I found one dead with torn fins. I thought it was my ghost shrimp that started to eat it, but now I am thinking it was my angel.

And then the largest angel likes to actually swim from one side of the tank to the other just to chase the longfin tetra.

My angels are in no way underfed. By the time the rest of the fish get a decent amount of food, my angels have beer bellys.

Right now I took them out and put them in a 10 gallon tank. I am debating whether I should take them to the store or if I should try to accommodate them. I bought the angels with hopes that they could do okay with other fish, but they already killed two of my fish and I cannot think of any fish that these angels would do okay with.

What would you do in this situation?
 
need more info.
tank mates?
tank size?
structure in the tank?

Please remember that Angels are Cichlids.
that said Cichlids can be territorial.

it is best to have retreats for tank mates.
 
need more info.
tank mates?
tank size?
structure in the tank?

The angels were in a tank with 5 glass catfish, a longfin white skirt tetra and an albino BN pleco. The tank has white small rocks on the bottom and there is a large broken pipe decoration in the middle hooked up to an aerator, a bunch of ludwegia stems and slate that makes the back half of the tank an inch higher than the front and gives the glass cats/pleco a hiding spot sometimes.

The tank is a 29 gallon, right now all the fish are juveniles so there is plenty of room. I was planning on upgrading in the future as the fish got bigger and maybe making a school of longfins and possibly neon blacks. But obviously this will not work now as my angels will eat the neon blacks once they are big enough and likely harass the longfin tetras and the glass cats.

The only fish that didn't seem to be harassed was my pleco, although I noticed a chunk missing from his tailfin one day.
 
even tho the angels are juveniles they need room for territory.
a 29 is a small tank for the angels to investigate.
but the issues may change as the angel mature.
they will probably start establishing their pecking order and the aggression may turn towards the angels in the tank.

it is not un common for angels to pick on tank mates.

but in general they will leave many tank mates alone.

I have noticed that my angels will pick on some species more than others.. heavy armored fish like BN's are nearly bullet proof from the angels and smart enough to seek cover.
others like otocinclus become angel fodder in my tanks but others have good luck with them.

you may also look at target fish for the angels . Black neons seem to survive my angels for the most part but std neons are food to mine.

the tank that seems to have best luck for multiple angels and mixed species has been my 55.
I have 2 pair in there with a bunch of albino corys, sids, and BN's
the only fish those angels had issues with were the 6 oto's which became food.
 
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