Angels, anyone?

[roxcarr]

Hi - anyone want to talk about angelfish? I have two in one tank - so far, so peaceful, except for the one that nipped at my longfinned pleco.
I have four in my bigger tank, and I'm starting to see some signs of minor aggression, maybe sexual behavior. Two are marble with orange foreheads (I don't know any proper terminology). One is very pale silver, but maybe that's because it's at the bottom of the social structure. One is white with black stripes, and a big black spot by his eye.
I'm being so descriptive in case they're different kinds of fish and I just don't know.
I've had them about three months. The first five I got at the same time (from two different stores). One got popeye, and lost his eye. The other four grew SO FAST! (from about the size of a quarter to around 4") He couldn't catch up. I moved him to a new tank and got a companion for him. I don't know if maybe there's some truth to fish only growing to the size of their container, but Popeye's never going to catch up with the others, and his companion is growing much more slowly than the originals did.
So - how can you tell what sex they are? How aggressive will they get? Right now they just bump heads, and chase. The big black and orange ones are clearly the tank royalty. One of the others holds his own, the silver one just hides. Should I get yet another tank and separate them again? Please tell me anything and everything you all know about angels.

[djmatthewblack]

Male angelfish are extremely territorial and will fight badly with each other if they don't have enough space or places to hide. The males can also be pretty mean to the females, and the females develop a pecking order amongst them when there is males in the tank.

The easiest way to tell the difference is by looking at their foreheads. The male doesn't have a indention between the forehead and the mouth, while the female has a indention making the mouth look more beak like. I found this image in a googlesearch that might help:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q4zxI9HDMqY/TcLGVhQFVVI/AAAAAAAAAII/LLm7arK3yEU/s1600/difference%2Bbetween%2Bmale%2Bfemale%2Bangel%2Bfish.gif

A little nipping is normal, but if the fighting becomes severe to where they are causing harm to each other you might want to add more places to hide, get a larger tank, or sell or trade off some of your fish. I had to sell off a black angel that I had cause two males in a 35 gallon was too many for my tank. The all black angelfish are also known to be more aggressive.

[R_sustaita]

thank you, now i will know if i have a pair or not.

[R_sustaita]

no, seems i have 2 females no good for me.

[roxcarr]

I'm just so happy some one finally responded!!! Thank You! I'm going to wait a while longer , and more than likely pull one, maybe two out of the tank. I might give them to the guy that's setting the 100 gallon up at the nursing home if he wants them.