My angelfish at war?

[Lady Hobbs]

Or possibly a mating ritual???? In the last picture, you can see a very small projection of their sex organ but I can't tell the difference. Both are so small.

My thoughts was the one largest one is the male. His head is redder, he's the largest of the two and has a larger hump on his head but this is all I get from these two.

[Abbeys_Mom]

"locking lips" is a mating/territorial thing with Cichlids. My male Kribs would do it when they were fighting, but they also did it as part of mating. It's more of a dominance thing then a mating thing, so it is not a sure indicator of the sexes of the fish.
Hope this helps :)

[Lady Hobbs]

I keep hearing this but gosh, this goes on for ages until I give up and separate them again. I will put them back together and leave it be for a while as long as no damage is being done. You'd think their lips would hurt after awhile!

[Abbeys_Mom]

I have fish loose bits of lip, but nothing serious and it always heals. I had one Nic who kept trying to lip lock with my Torpedo Barb and ended up taking the barb's nose off. If they aren't hurting or stressing each other, I would leave them :) Who knows, it could be fun. Like fishie wrestling :)

[Incredulous_Ed]

I know this isn't really helping, but those are beautiful angels

[kufan]

I'm with Ed...those are 2 wonderful angelfish

[jeffs99dime]

like the pics hobbs

[Slinky_Bass]

Beautiful pics Hobbs, too bad they're fighting in them though. My angels fight for ages too. Last night I also discovered how my female injured her mouth. It was definitely a fighting injury, she was vigorously locking lips with her mate for about 5 minutes, the whole fight lasted about half an hour. By the end of it her mouth was open and skew again, and her gills were flared :(
So now at least i know for sure how it happened.

So anyway, good to hear you keep a close eye on them when they fight. Are these the two you had separated for so long?

[Lady Hobbs]

Thanks guys but AGAIN they are separated after a two hour struggle. The smallest of the two was actually either sinking to the bottom of the tank or floating to the top she was so plum worn out.

I just can't do it to these fish and don't want the injuries to them. The smallest of the them had swollen, chewed up lips and a bite on her nose. I have 7 more angels growing up and will see how they do together.

[Abbeys_Mom]

I love angels, but I won't keep them anymore. If you have one, they pick on their tankmates, if you have two, they fight. I had 3 angels in with smaller fish and they were all aggressive with the smaller fish, when I moved them in with bigger fish, they turned on each other. I finally traded them in for 2 Oscars. That ended badly too.

[Chrona]

I've actually had the opposite experience with Angelfish. Granted mine is pretty small (little more than 2 inches), he gets nipped and picked on by........CARDINAL tetras. I was hoping his semi-aggressive behaviour would encourage the cardinals to shoal. He does pick at one of the platies every once in a while during feeding times, though

[AquaQueen]

I had an Angel for two yrs.(maybe more) and she was the ONLY one I EVER had luck with I have bought many new Angels since that one died and NONE have ever survived longer then three months..So I have given up...I am sorry but I will be of no help to you either...Just had to let you know that...I still :luxlove: LOVE:luxlove: your Angels!!!

[Lady Hobbs]

You should see the juvie angels I bought a couple months ago. They poke and run at each other "already" as small as they still are. It's so funny watching them trying to be tough. I actually bought 3 silvers one month then added 4 more a month later. The silver are big already. 3 inches maybe.

[cocoa_pleco]

Theyre gonna have gangs now lol

[genitor]

I have a silver angel that would kill any new angel i added to the tank. She killed two other silvers that way. The third time i added a marble that was bigger than her and that curbed her aggression. They actually formed a pair and mated. About 30 fry survived which are in a tank by themselves and now 2 months old and doing well. I have the pair in a community tank where they unfortunately picked up the bad habit of eating their eggs probably because they feel insecure having eggs around the other fishes. They don't pick on their tankmates just chase them away if they get too close, no nipped fins or anything.