Angelfish is one of the best freshwater fish in my aquarium. And now it’s been 3 years I am keeping it in my aquarium.
They are fully grown-up fish about 6 inches long.
Yesterday, I was feeding them, enjoying their beauty and wondering how long do angelfish live.
So I did some research and find found out angelfish live for 10 years in a fish tank if you maintain the ideal environment for it.
Table of Contents
How fast do angelfish grow?
Angelfish can grow very fast when it is small.
If you get a baby angelfish for your tank then it can grow really fast until it reaches one and a half inches.
After that its growth will be slower.
But there are several other factors that affect the growth rate of angelfish.
Tank size
Tank size is a big factor when it comes to the growth of angelfish.
Angelfish can grow very big and an adult angelfish require a large tank of at least 55 gallons.
If you are getting small angelfish then it will not be a problem even if you keep it in 30 and even in a 20-gallon tank.
But eventually, you will have to move it to a larger tank or else it will get stunted.
Water parameters
Water parameters also affect the growth of angelfish.
So for optimum growth, you should maintain the ideal water parameters i.e. temperature, pH and hardness of the water.
The ideal water parameters for angelfish are as follows:
- Temperature- 78°-84° F
- Hardness- 8° dKH (54 to 145 ppm)
- pH- 6.8 and 7.8
Ideal environment
Besides, you should also maintain a healthy environment for your angelfish to keep it stress-free.
You should regularly check the ammonia level in your aquarium and if you notice high ammonia levels then you can reduce the ammonia using these ways.
You should also maintain a healthy amount of oxygen in the tank
Genetics
Also, genetics has to do with the growth rate of angelfish.
Some angelfish will grow crazy fast and others will grow relatively slow.
Overall, if you provide an ideal environment for angelfish then it will grow faster and healthier.
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Angelfish care
Image source under CC BY-SA 1.0
Now let’s have a look at what you can do to increase the longevity of your angelfish.
Diet
Angelfish are omnivorous so their diet contains vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods.
Angelfish diet is a high protein diet.
In wild, angelfish mostly feed on small insects, larvae, rotifers, and crustaceans.
And they don’t eat a lot of algae or plants.
So you should emulate the same in your aquarium.
You can feed it protein-rich frozen and live food like bloodworms, brine shrimp, etc.
Frozen food
You can feed frozen Brine shrimp, Mysis shrimp, and bloodworms to your angelfish.
Frozen foods are very easy to get and you can easily get it from most of the aquarium shops and online.
Also, you can store them for a long period of time.
While feeding Frozen food, just make sure to soak it in water from your fish tank for 1-2 minutes before feeding them to your angelfish.
Live food
You can feed live food like Brine shrimp and bloodworms to your angelfish.
But feeding live food also carries is a risk of introducing harmful bacteria and parasites into your aquarium.
Such harmful bacteria and parasites can cause disease to your fish.
So the solution to this problem is to get your live food from a reputed store.
Besides, you cannot store live food for a long period of time and you should feed it to your fish within 3-4 days.
But live food is more nutritious than and frozen food.
Flakes and pellets
Flakes and pellets is a very convenient food to feed to your angelfish.
It is also very affordable as well.
While choosing this food for your angelfish, just make sure that it has a good amount of protein in it.
Tank size
Tank size is very important when it comes to the optimum growth of angelfish.
Angelfish can get up to 6 inches long so it requires a large tank.
As angelfish grow taller than longer it prefers a tall tank.
If you are getting small angelfish then a 30-gallon tank is enough.
But eventually, within one year you will have to move it to a larger tank of at least 55 gallons.
So it is a better idea to get a larger tank in the beginning.
Water parameters
Maintaining ideal water parameters is very crucial when it comes to the optimum growth of angelfish.
The ideal water parameters are as follows:
- Temperature- 78°-84° F
- Hardness- 8° dKH (54 to 145 ppm)
- pH- 6.8 and 7.8
So you should maintain these ideal water parameters in your aquarium for optimum growth of your angelfish.
Besides, you should also make sure that the oxygen levels in your aquarium are not very low.
If you found low oxygen levels then you can use these ways to increase the oxygen levels.
Also, you should keep up with the weekly water changes so that the bioload will not increase in your aquarium.
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Tankmates
Tankmates don’t directly impact the growth of your angelfish. But if you choose incompatible tankmates for your angelfish then your angelfish will be stressed out.
There are a couple of things you should keep in mind while choosing tank mates for your angelfish
- The first thing is you should avoid keeping fin nippers with your angelfish. Angelfish have long fins so fin nippers can really stress out your angelfish.
- You should also avoid keeping small fish i.e. the fish that are smaller than the mouth of your angelfish because Angelfish can easily eat them.
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Diseases, Prevention, and Cure
In this section, we are going to discuss several diseases that can harm your angelfish. And how to prevent them and also how you can cure them.
Parasites, fungus, bacteria, and viruses can cause diseases to your angelfish.
You can prevent these kinds of diseases by maintaining the ideal water conditions of your aquarium and also providing a well-balanced diet to your angelfish.
All these help to improve the immune system of angelfish which decreases the chances of causing any disease to your angelfish.
Angelfish Dropsy
Angelfish dropsy is an infection caused due to a bacterium present in the aquarium.
Now, this bacterium is usually present in aquariums.
But it can only cause disease if your angelfish do not have good immunity.
This disease affects the kidney functioning of the fish that causes fluid build-up inside your fish.
The symptoms of angelfish dropsy are as follows:
- The rapid movement of gills due to heavy breathing
- Loss of appetite
- Lethargy
- You will notice your angelfish is bloated
- You will also notice the eyes of your angelfish are popping out
- And scales are sticking out
If you notice angelfish dropsy in its early stage then you can treat it.
First of all, you should put your angelfish in a separate tank.
You should add antibacterial medicines in the food of your Angelfish.
You can also add Epsom salt to the fish tank which will help to remove some fluid from the fish. You should add the Epsom salt, 1/8 teaspoon per 5 gallons.
Angelfish Virus
The virus that affects specifically the Angelfish is called as angelfish virus.
This virus affects the immune system of your angelfish that can cause other infections to your angelfish.
The symptoms of angelfish virus are:
- Lethargy
- Not swimming as usual
- The fish points its nose up and it doesn’t move
- Excessive slime that made up of the body of the fish
This disease is very contagious and even when you treat your angelfish it still carries the risk of affecting other fish for up to 6 months.
As with most of the other viruses, the angelfish virus doesn’t have any particular cure instead of taking care of your angelfish by maintaining a clean and warm tank.
You can also provide antibiotics to your angelfish so that other infections will not build up in your angelfish.
Angelfish Ich or Ick
Angelfish ich is one of the common diseases.
This disease causes white spots on the body of your angelfish.
There are a couple of reasons that can cause this disease.
- The first one is a sudden change in the temperature of the water.
- Another reason could be if you add plants in your aquarium which carry the protozoa in your aquarium.
The symptoms of angelfish ich are as follows:
- You will notice white spots throughout the body of your angelfish.
- Also, you will notice angelfish rubbing its body on other objects in your aquarium to remove the spots.
- You will notice rapid gills movement of your angelfish
- The fins of your angelfish will be folded
- Other reasons include loss of appetite and unnatural swimming.
Remedies for angelfish ich includes
- Providing antiparasitic medication.
- If the disease is caused due to the lower temperature than raising the temperature to 86 degree Fahrenheit
- Adding aquarium salt into the water which will disrupt the fluid regulation of ich.
While adding these medications in your aquarium be sure to remove carbon filter from your aquarium because it can absorb these medications.
Fin Rot
Fin rot is another common disease found in freshwater aquariums.
This disease is caused due to bacterial infection.
This disease is usually caused due to insufficient cleaning of the tank.
The symptoms of Angelfish fin rot are as follows:
- You will notice the fin of your angelfish is shredded
- You will also notice milky white spots if the disease is spread on the other areas of the body.
- Fin rot can cause difficulty in swimming so you will notice unnatural swimming
The treatment for the fin rot is as follows:
- As this disease is usually caused due to an uncleaned fish tank, you should clean your fish tank.
- Then you should also do a water change of up to 50%.
- You should also check the water parameters of your aquarium and maintain ideal parameters for angelfish.
- If you have any fin nipper fish in your aquarium then you should remove them from your angelfish tank.
- Providing antibiotics also helps to cure this disease
As this disease causes shredded fin of the fish, unfortunately, this fin cannot regenerate.
So to avoid this disease on the first hand, you should strictly keep up with the weekly maintenance of your tank.
Angelfish Breeding
Image source under CC BY-SA 2.0
Angelfish are relatively easy to breed.
Angelfish form monogamy pairs that basically mean that they choose their partner for the lifetime.
It is very difficult to distinguish male and female Angelfish.
So to successfully breed angelfish, you should get at least 10 to 12 juvenile angelfish of the same size.
Put them in at least 20 gallons or more aquarium tank.
Then identify the pair among the fish. The pair form their own territory and chase off all the other fish from their territory.
So this is a very good sign to look for while identifying the pair.
Once you identify the pair then put them in a separate tank.
So that once they lay their eggs the other angelfish will not eat them.
Angelfish like to lay their eggs on a vertical surface that could be plant leaves, pipe in your aquarium, and even the glass wall of your aquarium.
So put a decent amount of tall-growing aquarium plants in the tank that have large leaves.
You can also place spawning slate into the tank so that angelfish can lay their eggs on it.
Once that’s done you just have to be patient.
It may take several attempts for the Angelfish to breed successfully.
Depending on the health of the female angelfish it can lay anywhere between 100 to up to 1200 eggs.
And angelfish can bread after every 7-8 days.
After laying the eggs, after 3-4 days the eggs will hatch.
But not all the eggs are going to hatch.
Also, after hatching the eggs, the fry will not start swimming. It will be still stay attached to the surface.
In this time, you don’t have to feed the fry, it will feed on its yolk sac.
After hatching the eggs in about a week the fry will start free-swimming.
Now it is time to feed them small brine shrimp and micro worms.
You should feed them as much as 6 times per day.
Also, after a couple of days, you should remove the parents from the tank and keep them another tank.
After about a couple of weeks, the fry will start free swimming
And now you should increase the quantity of food while feeding them.
FAQ
Why do angelfish die so easily?
Angelfish are relatively hardy and they are very adaptive as well.
So usually angelfish don’t die very easily.
But there could be several reasons that can cause the death of your angelfish.
Usually, Angelfish die within a couple of weeks when you bring it to your aquarium.
So, if you just choose healthy angelfish, you can easily avoid this issue.
There are a few things you should look into while choosing an angelfish for aquarium.
The first thing is you should look at the activity level of the Angelfish.
You should make sure that the Angelfish is active and not hiding behind because it is a sign of a healthy angelfish.
Then you can look at the coloration of the Angelfish.
If possible you should ask the associates to feed angelfish and see how they react.
If they are very eager to eat then it is usually a sign of a healthy angelfish.
Once you chose a healthy Angelfish for aquarium then it all comes down to creating and maintaining a healthy environment for your angelfish in your aquarium.
Before introducing the angelfish, you should make sure that the aquarium is cycled.
Make sure that the biological filtration is good and it has zero nitrite and ammonia levels as well as the nitrate level is less than 40 PPM.
Angelfish do well in warm water so you should maintain about 80 degrees Fahrenheit temperature in your aquarium.
You should also add some tall growing plants that have larger leaves in your angelfish aquarium.
This will provide them a lot of hiding places so they will feel secure and they will not be stressed out all the time.
Besides, there are a lot of benefits of keeping live plants in the aquarium.
Freshwater Angelfish belong to cichlids family and their diet is protein-rich.
So their diet should consist of protein-rich foods like blood worms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp as well as flakes and pellets that are protein-rich.
You should also make sure that you are not only feeding them a protein-rich diet i.e. blood worms and brine shrimp.
You should also feed them vegetables a couple of times a week.
Besides, you should also make sure that your aquarium has a good amount of water flow that creates sufficient surface agitation so that your tank is well aerated.
Conclusion
So Angelfish can live for 10 years if you take good care of it.
It may even live longer than that and it can also live less than that.
It all comes down to how you take care of it.
To increase longevity, you should provide it the ideal environment.
I hope you found this article helpful.
If you do, please share it.
Happy fishkeeping!
