Bloody fish....

I've had my new angels for just over 3 weeks now, and initially a few of them had some torn dorsal fins, probably from the stress of being bagged for a number of hours. They had all started healing nicely, especially the two smallest, my Phillepine Blues, who have some nice growth already. The largest, one of my Smokey Blues were healing nicely too, only for me to just notice yesterday that this has happened:









In the last one it's not so noticeable, but you can really see the damage in the other three photos. My main worry is because these are quite deep tares will they heal properly? Had planned to do a rescape tomorrow, take all 4 angels out, bag them up, as well has the pearl gourami and the panchax (my main suspects), and completely change the tank to re-set territories. There was no way I could do it today hence waiting till tomorrow, but I feel awful now because one of my little Phillepine Blues is missing half of it's dorsal fin.

I'm pretty sure that this is happening at night, because I'm at home all day and have never seen any aggression on this scale. I'll up water changes and feed bloodworms with vitazin and garlic to help him heal, does anyone else have any suggestions on how to deal with this? I really wish I could get another 2 angels, just in case they are squabbling amongst themselves (as they reckon 6+ is the most ideal), but I've already pushed the stocking as it is

Biggest suspect is currently the panchax, because he has killed 2 other fish in the past (he hounded the two female panchax I had to death, the second one he beat up really badly). And when I had rummynose tetra in there, as soon as the lights went out he was after them. The gourami can be a little stroppy at times, but has never done any damage like this, where as the panchax has.I don't think it's the krobia or keyholes because they stick to the bottom levels, and the angels the top, so I think it's definitely one of the top dwellers.

Haven't got a clue what I'm going to do if this continues even after the tank rescape tomorrow

I think it'll be fine and heal well. I've just had an angel with a completely split top fin (caused by an aggressive geophagus so don't completely rule out the keyholes or krobia). That's healed almost completely in a week and I didn't do anything special for her.

I know panchax can be aggressive but I'm not sure if he has the mouth to cause these types of tears. He killed the females likely out of pure passion and the rummy nose he probably saw as food due to their shape. I'm not sure why he'd attack an angel. My main culprit would be the other cichlids or the gourami.

They're looking great though and even seem much bigger since I last saw you post about them!

Sam

Well, it doesn't look like any damage was done to any of them last night, thankfully.

Thanks for that reassurance Sam, just hope that the smaller Phillepine blue's dorsal hasn't been hacked off too short. I'll try and get a picture of the damage later, but it's totally different damage to the angel pictured in my first post. Good news is that the smokey blue looks like it's already started to heal.

I'm really not sure about the panchax, I was watching them for a long time yesterday with the light off, and he was showing way too much interest in them, to the point where he was going down to lower levels of the tank to check them out, which he never usually does.

If damage is still being done after I do this re-scape today, then I'll isolate him and see if it is him causing it. I don't want to jump to conclusions and re-home him without being 100% sure it is him, he's a beautiful fish with bags of personality. God knows what I'll do if I find out that it's the angels doing it to each other.

They've grown like mad! Especially the blue smokeys. I'm totally in love with angelfish now, I've already started itching about an eventual upgrade so that I can have a big group together.

I can't stop staring at the tank wistfully, as James (who I got these guys from) has just had black lace angels in and they'd look amazing along side the blues D: