Freshwater Angelfish

The The freshwater angelfish is a popular aquarium fish but it originates from the Amazon River in South America. These fish are shaped like cichlids and actually belong to the family Cichlidae. They are laterally compressed, so very flat, with triangular fins and round bodies. Many times they may have stripes as this provides camouflage when they are in the wild. These fish are predators and eat smaller fish. Through breeding you can purchase two types of finned angelfish the standard fin and veil fin. The veil fins are elongated and develop fully at maturity.

Freshwater angelfish are popular because of their color, behaviour and unique shape. The most common species found in aquariums is the Pterophyllum scalare though sometimes Pterophllum altum can be found. If you can find a Pterophyllum leopoldi then buy it as these are the rarest fish to find for aquariums. Angelfish prefer warm water so you should keep your aquarium at around eighty degrees and a pH of 7.0 as the highest. They will do just as well in slightly acidic water as well.

Angelfish prefer a mixture of live, flaky and frozen food they you should make sure you don't over feed them as they will keep eating whether they are full or not. Overfeeding can cause them to build up fat and become inactive which results in an early death. These fish tend to be peaceful but they can be aggressive with the big fish eating the smaller fishes. You should keep particularly aggressive angelfish isolated.

It is possible to breed angelfish for aquarium use. However this produces fish that do not having any rearing instincts a trait that was very strong in the wild angelfish. Therefore commercially bred angelfish do tend to eat their young and it can be difficult to determine which fish is male or female and when to breed. Angelfish mate for life and protect each other from threats. If one mate dies it has been noted that the living mate will refuse to pair with another fish.

Some of the more common coloring for angelfish are silver also known as the wild type, gold, zebra, black lace or zebra lace, smokey, chocolate, half black, sunset blushing, koi, leopard, blue blushing, silver gold marble, ghost, gold marble, marble, black hybrid, pearl scale, black ghost and albino. These types of angelfish have resulted in many cross breeds over the years with selection for specific appearance mutations.

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