How many angelfish pairs in a 90g?

[Zoe]

I have a group of angelfish in my 90g planted. Three of them have paired off (into one spawning group), and another two just paired up today. They seem to be getting along okay (for some reason they chose to spawn in the same clump as the other trio), but I'm wondering how many pairs I have room for in this tank, and whether I'll have to sell one Because I have a few more angels and if they pair up to... yowza!

[babblefish1960]

This is merely my opinion of course, but from breeding angels for more than 30 years, I would suggest that you should only really have about eight angelfish in a ninety gallon tank, maximum, and that is with the proviso that there are lots of ways for them to hide from each others line of sight, and of course, a free swimming area when they need to bolt for cover or live food.

In the case of breeding pairs, without dithers, the aggression will be getting ugly very soon, and in fact, it is a rare breeding cichlid such as angelfish that will get along nicely with other breeding pairs. They will miss the dithers eating their eggs or fry as they focus too much on the other angelfish.

In the end, you will only ever happily house one breeding pair of angelfish in a ninety, but this is just my experience.

The only time I ever had peace with this arrangement was with seven pairs of breeding angels in a heavily planted 500 gallon tank.

It has also been my experience that all of the breeding pairs will want the very same "ideal" spawning site, things do not go very well after mates have been chosen.

[Zoe]

I have about 8 angels... there a couple more than that, but they are leaving on Wednesday, so the final number will be 8.  That's the pair, the trio, and three others.

I don't care too much if the eggs get eaten, but I don't want the angels to fight too much.

I guess I'll keep an eye out and see how it goes.  The trio is made up of the angels that I can live without... so if I have to, I'll sell them.

Zoe

[FISHEYE]

Noooooooo! They are so cute together! LOL

I agree though, I prefer our black/stripped pairing.