Advice Needed for Buying a Regal Angel

[dennis romano]

In all of my years of keeping marine tanks, I have never had a Regal angel. I almost bought a captive bred, but balked at spending $500 on a fish that I had no experience. I could use some advice from those aquarists who have kept them long term. The LFS in my area usually don't carry them so I have been looking on line. Where did you buy them? What vendors tend to have the best track record? Thanks for your help.

 

[JMacedo]

Can't help with vendors as I live in Bangkok but I do have some experience with Regal Angels and I find the Yellow Belly ones, from the Maldives or Red Sea easier to adapt to live in our tanks.
They can take a few days to start eating, so it is better to find a specimen that is already taking foods while in the LFS. With that said, they are not too difficult to start eating if enticed with raw mussels or clams on a half shell.
They also like to eat sponges, a mature tank with sponges helps until the Regal starts to eat. All my fish are fed with a home made blend of shrimp, clams, mussels and nori and my Regal loves it but I don't know how well they do on other kinds of foods.
Hope this helps.

 

[Cheese Griller]

I would actually recommend a captive bred fish if it's your first time. Paying the premium to have a fish that has a better chance to be eating and is already adapted to aquarium life is worth every penny IMO. Since the CB ones are more or less 2x the cost of a WC I would say it's a good investment. Especially with a more difficult to care for fish that may result in you losing the first one if you buy WC

 

[njreefkeeper]

As someone who used to own a store, I can tell you that it’s not necessarily the region that affects their hardiness but the means by which they’re caught. Regal Angels from the Red Sea (what most call yellow bellies) are all hand caught, and not in holding vessel tanks on the boats for as long as the netted ones in much of the Indo Pacific rim. The means by which they’re transported and taken care of on those boats with proper aeration and continuous water changes makes a huge difference by the time they reach our tanks. The few times I’d take a chance and order ones from the Phillipines and other Indo regions they came in much more haggard and difficult to acclimate to captive conditions and accepting our foods.

You’re much better off saving for a Red Sea Regal. It’s worth the extra cash and a lot less heartache for such a beautiful fish. While in qt I’d always grab some sponge out of the refugium in a large show tank and put it in with the regals in low light as often as possible. Once you get them eating that sponge they’ll usually start picking at NLS pellets....a good thing. Frozen foods that float around in the water column take a little longer for regals to accept...mostly I believe because they don’t pick out of the water column in the wild, but rather rip sponge and crustaceans off rocks. Moorish Idols are very similar in feeding...which is probably why the two have been known as the holy grails of fish to get feeding and ultimately keeping.

Hope this helps!

Hope this helps.

 

[albano]

My advice is to try to find someone selling their Regal… much better chance of survival than store bought or online.

 

[LaloJ]

I had a Regal Angelfish when I had little experience and were relatively cheap, it was a gray chest, so given my little experience and the difficulty or bad manipulation of a fish like that because I had no success although, so now I feel quite confident for Being able to keep it, so something that would undoubtedly make a specimen that feeds, if it's gray or yellow chest would be a price choice but would overlook it, the yellowbelly regals are absolutely stunning fishes so if I get a fish like this and that also feed from the beginning that would be to win a good percentage of success, the rest depends on the adaptation process that you are going to take with the fish to your QT tank (because yes, qt always), you must have a variety of frozen foods, sea food porridge and dry food, nori can also help, or anything that may interest you perhaps clams or fresh mussels, I'm not a guy who likes to medicate in qt, alone mind feed the fish to make them strong and fat. I learned from Copps to maintain a quarantine for 3 months to completely rule out any cryptocarion cyst, if everything goes well the DT.

 

[areefer01]

It is an expensive fish and one that comes with risk. Ignoring everything else me personally I would buy a captive bred/raised over wild caught. I would also buy directly from the source. In this case Biota would be my go-to. I'll say this up front that I am biased as I have purchased several fish from them with my recent order being 4 pink square anthias. Just need to be up front with that.

Why would I purchases captive bred/raised and direct vs LFS:

1. Captive bred/raised - it is the future of this hobby and the right thing to do
2. Already eating, known food to start and have on hand
3. Bio secure / clean holding system. No middle holding, LFS, boat, etc so less risk
4. Known age of fish (within reason that is) vs. wild caught - unknown

I've purchased the anthias, matted filefish, stary goby, links goby, radial filefish, forktail blenny, gold lined rabbit fish, and the SPS frag from Palau. Waiting for the Milletseeds next. I have not purchased the regal though so can not comment specifically on that fish from them. I can only speak why I would use them as the source and why it is important in my opinion.

Hope your day is going well. All the best.

 

[Pneumatic_Addict]

TSM Aquatics or Marine Collectors. Both have fully quarantined and conditioned their fish. Neither will send you a fish that isn’t eating.

I have a pair, the last coming from TSM. Eats everything I throw in the tank.