coral beauty angelfish

Jul 22, 2004
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#1
with the research i have done,, it is all conflicting,, i read you can keep coral beauty angelfish together as long as you have 3,, i have 2 ! i have also heard not to put any together,, and i have heard that they are mild enough that with enough room 2 would be fine,, well? how much room is enough room?
thanks in advance
 

wayne

Elite Fish
Oct 22, 2002
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#2
i read you can keep coral beauty angelfish together - yes
as long as you have 3,, i have 2 - i have seen pairs and harems of this and other centropyge
and i have heard that they are mild enough that with enough room 2 would be fine,, well? how much room is enough room? They're not that mild - if you get two that are incompatible you will at least 6 feet of tank lengh, probably 8 or 10 to be safe. The key is to et a compatible group of 1m1f or 1m,2or more f. All centropyge start life as females, and then the dom,inant one in the group becomes the male. I am unsure if you have 2 males in a groupp, one reverts, but anyway if you have 2 males in a tank the dominant one will kill the other (lack of space to hide). So to get a group, normally you buy 3 or 4, all small and let themselves sort it out.
I would not advise this in a 55 for example, you do need a decntly large tank to help out, although if you can get these at say, 3/4 or 1 inch then a 55 might well be large enough. I have never tried and so am speculating.
Putting 2 together is basically guessing. You might get two males (one dies), 2 females (ok), and then one goes male, or you might get a male/female that are compatible, or a pair that fight.
If I had a pair, and they were ok I'd lave them be I think. Some people advise adding a 3rd, very small, to beef up the pair band, but in a small tank I think it's risky.

Next year I will try to get a trio of Centropyge - I hadn't really though of CB's, but they would be a good option. I was thinking bicolors or rusties
 

Jul 22, 2004
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#3
i see,, well the problem is i already have 2 beauties but right now they are in 2 seperate 55 gal tanks, i was hoping to put them together,, one is about 1 3/4" and the other is about 2".. i wanted to make this change so that when i added the 72 lbs of branch tanga i could have my beauties in a seperate tank until i knew all was good with the rock i bought? Should i set up a 20 qt tank for the beauty? because i also have a yellow tang, condy anenome, tree coral, lawn mower blenny, fox face, coral beauty and a peppermint shrimp in the tank i was going to add the one beauty too.. the tonga is suppose to be here in about 8 hrs or so,, but i will have it in totes for awhile.. so i have a little time to think about this.

good luck with the centropyge, i hope you do consider the cb's they are beautiful
 

wayne

Elite Fish
Oct 22, 2002
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#4
I think you are going to struggle to keep the two together in a 55 although 2 inches is not huge. Could you partition the tank - you'd need to go to a hardware and get some 'eggcrate' lighting diffuser and saw it to a suitable size. I suspect you will have some issues - 55 is a bit smaller than I'd like, even if you reaquascape to leave clear ground in the middle. Also my keepoing one alone, I'm not sure if it will necessarilly become a male. Remember, 2 males = fighting

Basically I don't think just dumping one in will work too well
 

Jul 22, 2004
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#5
i dont think i can really partition the tank without crowding everything i got in there, do you think the beauty would be ok in the tank he is in if i add the rock with him in there? or do you think this will stress him out,, looks like im going to have to stress him a little either way, i am going to have to think about the partition thing for a bit, good suggestion but i dont wanna stress 10 to save 1.
 

wayne

Elite Fish
Oct 22, 2002
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#7
Well RCT are breeding pygmies in tanks down to 30. Once you have a pair you're probably good, but getting there will be sticky.
If you think just popping a second CB into the tank with an already established fish is going to work, I think you're very , ummm, optimistic.