General Care Discussion :: angel fish

[wbedoya]

I just put an angel fish in the tank with my res and the turtle is trying to attack it and I'm guessing he wants to eat it....was this a bad idea adding an angel fish??? I bought like an hour ago cause it looks nice in an aquarium

[rangergirl56m]

Your turtle thinks you just tossed a candy bar into his tank! Since RES naturally eat fish, they aren't going to tell the difference between a feeder guppy or a $6 angelfish...sooner or later your turtle will eat it. If you would like it to stay alive, you are going to want to take it out of the tank immediately!

[jozzep]

Most likely it will get eaten....

[wbedoya]

Nevermind guys....They seem to get along just fine....I'm sure eventually the turtle will eat it as it will grow but I'm now kind of expecting it....lol...right now the fish is kind of big for the turtle....my res is 1 1/3 of an inch and the angel is around an inch so...

[mike hill]

w-ya Your turtle will eat it no matter what size. It will get a piece at a time until it cannot swim and then, yum yum. HA

[imderanged]

An expensive snack...let me just warn you, a larger fish just means a MESS to clean up (I let my turtle have a fish too big to eat whole and he pulled its insides out and bit off its head. I'm not particularly 'sensitive' as I have a number of animals who eat live prey, but it grossed me out!!!)

[bradmeisel]

good thing the angel fish will go to heaven and it's already an angel.

[jay2487]

In my experience size does not matter but if the fish is fast enough eventually the turtle will give up chasing and let it be. That doesn't mean your turtle won't take a fin off at anytime if the fish ventures to close. If you aren't worried about the fish and are willing to sacrifice the $6 then I say go for it. I have over 30 fish in with my turtles at any given time and never lose any fish that I didn't want to lose. Never have tried an Angel though so I'm curious to see how it works out.

But as imderanged said, letting a RES eat a fish twice it's size is quite a nasty thing to watch. It will spread the fish from one side of the tank to another and rip it to pieces. You definitely wouldn't want to let it eat the whole thing either.