Bellus angel M/F compatibility

[delphinus]

I have a pair of bellus angels (Genicanthus bellus). I myself have had them around 2 years, but I initially got them from another hobbyist who was shutting his tank down. So they are a couple years old at this point.

I am curious, or rather, starting to have doubts, about the long-term compatibility of these two fish in a tank together. The male is very aggressive towards the female. There does not appear to be any lasting damage done, but there is a contant cat-and-mouse thing going on with them. I just moved them into a larger tank, a 280g from a 115g, and paradoxically it feels as if the aggression has increased rather than decreased.

After all this time, it's clear it's not something that's going to lessen as time goes on. I guess my question is, are "pairs" usually like this? Or is this basically not a "pair" but just a male and a female and they hate each other?

I'm getting tempted to think about selling one or both.

The only hesitation I have is that since they are sequential hermaphrodites or whatever the term is for when fish turn from one gender to the other .. is the male simply reasserting his dominance so that the female stays female basically, and thus he keeps her from turning into a rival male?

Or is it possible that angels don't really "pair up" per se, that females are simply males who haven't aged enough yet, but will turn into a male no matter what, sooner or later? If that were the case then that could explain the escalating aggression.

I would appreciate any thoughts. Thanks!

 

[Mike612]

Genicanthus angels, like your Bellus Angels, usually pair up well. I found from my own experience that sometimes fish pair well together in one tank and then want nothing to do with each other if they're moved to another tank. I bought a pair of Helfrichi Firefish 2 years ago. They were at the store for a month or so. They got along extremely well. I bought the two of them. Once they were in the tank, the male wouldn't even let the female out of her cave. Eventually she starved to death because I couldn't catch her and the male wasn't letting her out of her hiding spot.

Like you said, I believe it to be more of a dominance issue more than anything, but I could be wrong.

Is your female still eating? Is she showing signs of stress?

 

[delphinus]

She is still eating at least. The chasing seemed a little less today but yesterday I even saw her jump out of the water to escape his chasing. There doesn't appear to be any actual damage inflicted but the jumping thing really put me on alert.

 

[jhemdal1]

"The only hesitation I have is that since they are sequential hermaphrodites or whatever the term is for when fish turn from one gender to the other .. is the male simply reasserting his dominance so that the female stays female basically, and thus he keeps her from turning into a rival male?"

I've never kept a pair of bellus, but I've seen this same thing with clownfish, where the top female exerts dominance over the subordinants because they are working at changing into females themselves. IMO, there are problems in aquariums with hormones in the water that send the fish mixed messages. We see this "chemical warfare" with discus, where they try to dominate each other, and definately something is being released into the water that keeps some fish subordinant (e.g. dividing the tank with a screen doesn't help the skinny fish, but moving it to a new tank by itself does). Our anthias get all mixed up as well - a majority of males developing in harem groups when you wouldn't see that in the wild.


Jay