Dwarf Angels

[Cool Cat]

I'd love to add a dwarf angel to my 210 gallon reef! Which type have you guys found to be the most reef safe?

 

[GoPitt88]

I have a Coral Beauty, which is my centerpiece fish in my 55 gallon mixed reef. I have mostly softies, but also 4 different SPS. He doesn't touch any of my corals. My tank is pretty full with coral, and he just swims through them without paying any attention to them.

 

[ndrwater]

Any or all can sometimes be problematic, but the general consensus is that Coral Beauty's are generally Reef safe.

 

[OrionN]

I always have a harem of Flame Angels in my large mixed reef.

 

[4FordFamily]

Any centropyge can decide to eat or nip at coral. I’ve kept flame, coral beauty, potters, and flameback in reefs for some time for years. It seems that about half of them eventually decided to munch or nip coral. I’ve kept probably a dozen of each over the years in various tanks.

I’d say due to their beauty and my lack of expensive coral that they’re well worth it

 

[Syed123]

Only ever kept Coral Beauty's in terms of dwarf angels. Always been reef safe for me.

It's a role of the dice if they will turn on your corals or not.

To avoid/reduce coral nipping feeding often helps.

 

[Eastlake]

Find one you like and flip a coin, any dwarf angel you add to a reef can become a coral nipper. I've kept a number of dwarf angels over the years and only one has ever nipped at corals and that's the flame angel that I have now. It hasn't zeroed in on anything and destroyed it but it casually swims about taking a sample of everything in the tank including softies, LPS, and SPS. I do agree that coral beauties are largely safe but when I was working at a local fish store someone returned one that they had purchased three days prior stating that it had eaten over half of his coral and as pudgy as that little fish was when he brought it back I'd believe it.

 

[Cool Cat]

Thanks for all of your advice! Seems like the coral beauty is the safest bet. Right now I have several large zoanthid colonies, galaxia, frogspawn, hammers, acans, cabbage, toadstool, GSP, mushrooms, Kenya tree, finger leathers, purple encrusting anthalia, Duncan's and Xenia. Any of those seem to be on the menu more than others in your experience or do the dwarf angels like to sample everything?

 

[Maritimer]

Of the corals you've listed, acans and zoanthids are likely to be the most tempting.

~Bruce

 

[Eastlake]

In my experience acans are like angel candy, keep your eyes glued to them.