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SAEs attacking Angels
I have just had something happened that I have never seen mentioned on the
APD before. I have eight SAEs in my 110g heavily planted tank. The sizes of
the SAEs range from about an inch (six of them) to about four inches (two of
them). I also have eight adult angels in the same tank.
About two weeks ago, I noticed one of the big male angels turned sideways in
the tank. I thought he could have been in stress, so when I looked closer, I
noticed one of the smaller SAEs nibbling on the angel's fins. This
particular angel had long flowing veils and the SAE was going after them. It
seemed that the angel was turning sideways in an attempt to prevent the SAE
from nibbling on his fins.
I watched for a few more minutes and noticed that two more of the SAEs were
also nibbling on this angel's fins. Several days later, I noticed that the
smaller SAEs were doing the same thing to another angel with long fins.
Since I had never noticed this before, I thought the angels would eventually
take care of themselves because they were much larger than the SAEs.
Well, I was wrong. For the past week, the SAEs continued to pester the
angels and yesterday when I came home from work both were dead. Other than
the angels' fins being somewhat frayed, there were no other signs of stress.
These were very healthy two-year old angels and the remaining six are in
great shape, so I don't think they died from disease or bad tank parameters.
If the angels died because of the SAEs' harassment (and I believe they did),
could it be that the SAEs were starving from lack of algae and they decided
to feed on the angels' fins. Has anyone else ever noticed such SAE behavior
before?
Any suggestions as to what might be going on here would be greatly
appreciated?
Thanks,
Ken Guin
AGA Member