I have a tropical tank with 1 angelfish, 2 flying foxes,1 catfish, 1 sunburst wagtail platy, and 3 zebra danios.  My question is which is the likely culprit that keeps killing the other fish?.  We have spent pounds on fish and something keeps killing them.  I am sure it isnt a case of them just dying.  Any ideas?

Is there a Champfish site??

:D

What makes you think they are being killed - is there any fish damage? Fighting? I know angel fish can be aggressive... but I am not that up on tropicals since my mum put an Oscar in her tank and I watched it eat all the others when I was five LOL

catfish sometimes eat the fins of other fish leaving them swimming upside down and they eventually drown (or what ever it is that fish do without oxygen).  I found this out to my cost.

Angelfish are know to be aggressive unless small.  wouldn't have thought it was a danio (arn't they peaceful?) same as platy.  Cat fish might be a bully to smaller fish and don't know what a flying fox is!

Maybe you could ask the shop where you buy them?

Also arn't agelfish better when kept together?

What fish are you putting in and are dieing?

Angel without a doubt!

Yes I would say the Angel fish too.

Thanks all :).  I obviously watch them as much as possible.  There have been occasions where overnight the fish have been fine,  and then i get up the next morning to find fish with no heads or fins missing .  We suspected the angel fish, but was told it would be ok with the other fish as long as there wasnt a pair of them.  The fish we have found dead have ranged from neons to silver sharks, mollies.

In my experience, I would have to say the angel fish too. I never managed to keep guppies in my tank as the angels always ate their tales which immobilised them, then they would eat the rest :( They often killed other fish too but I think they saw guppies as easy prey...like shooting fish in a barrel :rolleyes: (groan....sorry!)

I agree, as much as I like the Angel fish I have not taken any on as they are quite nasty, cat fish can be bullies at times and another reason for why I have not had any of those either :)

We found that the angel fish were fine with the fish that they had grown up with - but any new, small fish that were introduced were soon eaten :D

Daisy

What sort of catfish is it?  Some catfish are absolute saints - cories for example - and some are specialised, like synodonts or George, my sun cat (9" and always hungry!).

Flying Foxes can sometimes be dodgy when they get big I think - depends on the setup though.  Angels can be territorial - how big is the tank?  Also how big are the angels, flying foxes and the catfish?  Some fish get worse with size, angels in particular can.

I agree with Daisy, we had trouble with putting new fish in with the existing Angel Fish.

When we had our tank set up and were ready to introduce fish, the aquarium shop wouldn't sell us Angel fish as they said they aren't 'community' fish and would kill the rest, so like everybody else I would definitely say it's the Angel fish!

Angel is as Angel does!!! Certainly don't live up to their name and are an absolute nightmare with other fish...in the end we had a separate tank for the Angel fish, then set up another with all the 'pretty' fish, such as Zebra finches, guppies ect. I really loves the Black Mollies, but they were always prone to fungal infection, I don't know why?? All the best, Dawn (we also found that the Angel fish always picked on the smaller Angel fish too!)

Mollies need slightly salty water, so really shouldn't be kept with fish that can't tolerate salt. They will survive quite happily in an ordinary tank, but as you found out they are prone to fungi ;)

Oh, I agree about the Angels. My dad had 2 that grew up in the tank and were fine with the other fish. One died so he bought some more and the older, larger one ate them

The tank is 96 litres.  The catfish is a plecostomus sp? and is about 3 inches long.  The angel is about 4-5 inches and the biggest thing in the tank the flying foxes are also about 3 inches long.

anyway of keeping one seperate and see what happens then
Why do they call them angel fish if there so evil hahaa :D

If the catfish is a plec, then I doubt it's that - in my tank I have four plecs, ranging from 4" long to my big girl at 13", and they are all peaceful as can be.  The flying foxes don't get issues until they're full size at about 5-6" if I remember rightly - so I'm going to agree with everyone else and say the angel :)

It does remnid me of an angel I used to, er, "know" - my first boss had a couple of fish tanks, and in one he had a full size, 6" golden angel - couldn't keep a thing with her once her mate died.  She killed everything.  In the end he had to stuff the tank with java moss so she couldn't get to the other fish!

It will be the Angel fish, they are well known killers of smaller fish :)

We had 6 tanks of tropical fish a few years ago ...wish we had the space for one now :)

I have to disagree,I have 3 tanks each with catfish,mollies,tiger barbs,1 siamese fighter and 2 angel fish.
The angel fish are so placid.I too had heard that they can be bullies so I watched each tank carefully.Never have I seen any aggression from any of them, even to new members :)I have lost a few fish in one tank but the culprit was a large catfish.My OH said if he got too big he would try to eat the smaller fish but I laughed How wrong I was.We actually caught him in the act.So if your catfish has a mouth with could easily suck a smaller fish in he may be your culprit.The suck them in,spit them out,suck them in etc etc.

Article

Quote from it:

Solitary angels can be/come tremendous terrors, killing all of the other livestock in a system. Most overt aggression will be eliminated by placing a number (six or more) individuals in good sized systems (sixty or more gallons).

Remember, the OP said they had a SOLITARY Angelfish ;)

what fish are being killed ?
Have the small fish got hiding places ?
i think it's the angelfish. But it could be the catfish

Donna :-)

Now that you have said he is a plecostomus I don't think it is the cat fish doing the damage, well not deliberately anyway.  I think I would be looking to the Angels too.

My plec used to eat dead fish in the tank, I dont know if he ever killed them though.

I would deffo say it is the catfish, my ,mate got one and it ate all his smaller fish one by one - at one point there was only one very scared looking angel fish left, and I so wanted to rescue it, but the next time I came back, it has been eaten as well Oops, just read its a pleco, so recon it wouldn't be that after all ... go with the other;s on angel fish then