Angry Angelfish Pairs- Help

I have 2 pairs of adult angelfish in a 6ft Long tank. Normally, they are like a traffic cops in the tank. They swim from one end to the other making sure everything is in order in the neighbourhood.

Recently, the Marbled is attacking the Silver angelfish. They are locking mouths and all flared up. The Silver has a bruised lip and a fleshy fin wound.

I tried separating them by a divider. Just isolating The aggressor (marbled). But then the other 3 goes to the divider and starts hanging there. Its like they are just visiting their Friend in “jail”. So I release the marbled and put the Silver in “jail”. Now the silver striped is stress and losing his colour black stripes.

I don’t know what to do. Help. Any ideas?

 

Prepare to house only two angels or this will continue ?
Sounds like the silver is a sub dominant male and the marble is alpha .
Even in a tank as large as yours if they don't want to get along they won't .
I keep trying to figure out why they named them angels ? True cichlids and not always the best behaved fish even though very popular ..

 

Thanks for your reply. I was hoping that I could keep more angels. How do the ones that have a school of angels maintain them in a tank though? I’m sure there’s a few males in there.
Hmmm.

Prepare to house only two angels or this will continue ?
Sounds like the silver is a sub dominant male and the marble is alpha .
Even in a tank as large as yours if they don't want to get along they won't .
I keep trying to figure out why they named them angels ? True cichlids and not always the best behaved fish even though very popular ..

 

Get more !
Just like the African cichlids many fish can have their aggression minimized by distributing the punishment among the many as opposed to the few .
More line of sight brakes and hard scape can help also .

 

Yes, So, Where I work we have a 125G planted tank with 7 or 9 (cant remember) angels. They get along for the most part until two of them pair up, there's a breeding pair in that tank, and they'll chase the others over to one side and they'll guard the other side when this occurs. But otherwise they're alright.

Either you lessen your amounts and only have two, or you overcrowd them. So that there is so much competition that no male wants to try to beef with another. Theres still error here though, anything can happen and like we do on occassion, you may have a breeding pair that decides to take over the tank every once in awhile, but you can keep a small bunch if the tank is big enough.

 

I had the same problem. In the end one went back to the lfs......I couldn’t stand watching him pick on the other one all the time.