Queen Angelfish

[mylady]

At my visit to the LFS today I saw a tiny Queen Angelfish. I of course thought it was gorgeous, came home, googled it and of course, not a fish we can have in our tank. What I found really interesting though is when I googled the images they all looked SO different. I mean, body the same and yellow and blue but with so many different variations of how much blue to how much yellow. I am sure some were pics of juveniles versus mature fish, but it just amazed me. I know some fish can totally change in appearance from juvenile to adult, but I've never seen so much variation of what looked like mostly mature fish. They are beautiful though. Anyone have one? I'd love to see some pics and hear about your personal experiences with this fish. Maybe one day when we have a bigger house and hubby has his fish room that he wants. It will be right next door to my bird room LOL.

 

[monsinour]

Well, that settles it, no fish room for me if you get to have a bird room.

 

[aquaknight]

As far changing color from juvenile to adult, in fact almost all large angels experience quite a significant change. It is definitely a rewarding experience to own a angel throughout their change.
As far as color variation among different adult Queens, it has to do with a couple things. The primarily one is the frequent hybridization with the Blue Angelfish. Traditionally Blue angel's inhabit the northern waters of the Caribbean, up to the Carolina's, and the Queen's live more southerly, down to Brazil and further. If you look at the extremes, you'll see mostly pure examples of each fish, Queens from Brazil are quite in demand and command a high retail price. The problem, well not really problem, is that throughout most of the middle Caribbean both these fish have overlapping ranges. You are quite likely not to find a 'pure' example of either fish throughout most of the Caribbean. It's just how much "percentage" of either parent fish the Queen's show, or don't show.
The other issue is isolationism, the affects of inbreeding. There are some extreme color morphs of Queen's, including all Blue and all White specimens, that are spectacular. Here is a great read, with pictures of basically all the color morphs.
http://www.brasilmergulho.com/port/biologia/documentos/Variacoes_cromaticas_populacao.pdf

 

[tannersmith200]

Howdy
I have a juv queen angel and he is awesome!!!! I fell in love with these fish ever since I started snorkeling/scuba in the carribean (mostly in the dry tortugas). I would see queen and french angels everywhere. i really liked the queen so i decided to get one. I buy all my fish at the juvinile stage.
When I got him, he was beautiful but he would not eat a thing. It took 2 weeks before he would start eating seaweed then he began eating flake foods. Now he eats like a hog and eat pretty much everything I offer except meaty foods. So I feed him a lot of green, red seaweeds and nori with a high quality flake food.
You see, in the wild most angels eat sponges and munch on algae all day. I think this is the reason for the hesitation to eat. i ordered him from SWF.com and they gave me an awesome fish. He was captured from the carribean just a couple days before I got him so it took a little time to adjust to captivity and a captive diet.
All is good now...enjoy the pics.