New Angelfish - but what are they?

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and my main reason for joining was to find out what type of Angelfish mine are. I'd also like to know their sex but I know enough about angels to know they are hard to sex. I've looked at many photo's of various angels online and thought they were a Smokey blushing but recently a electric blue marking has appeared just in front of the dorsel fin. I'm not normally in the habit of naming fish but these two angels have been named   

The first one to arrive was Shadow






Shadow unfortunately ended up alone in the tank for a week after illness struck but once I felt confident everyone was well again I went back to the store Shadow came from and they had some more angels in the same colour and so Misty came home with me



Misty had had her dorsel fin nibbled at the store but 2 weeks later and it's starting to heal




We had a little bit of bullying of Misty from Shadow but there was no real serious aggression in it and it's now been downgraded from a charge and a nip to a dart and a nudge. I'm starting to see them swimming together peacefully when lights are out with just a bit of a nudge from Shadow at feeding time.

Just one more photo which I took last night which show's the blue marking I mentioned




Is anyone able to ID the type of these angels? They are still quite young so my guess would be that the colouration will come out more as they grow up

Hard to be sure exactly what they are, they're clearly some type of blushing angels. As you say, smokey blushing seems most likely, the blue on the dorsal might just indicate paraiba, but my guess is that they're just straight forward smokey blushing.

Hi thanks for getting back to me. The 'blushing' varies from time to time. It was more obvious when they first arrived but they've darkened in colour over the last couple of weeks and the blushing cheeks arn't as obvious now. The blue is only just starting to show up, it wasn't really visable to begin with.
Can I ask ... what is paraiba? I've not heard of that

I was looking at pictures last night on the angelfish society site (hope that's allowed) and there was a blushing turquoise that looked a lot like Shadow does now.

Also, have you any clues on their sex or is it too early to get any clues? I know they are notoriously hard to sex

Too early to sex.

Blushing is due to a specific gene called stripeless, fish having two copies of the gene are called blushing, young fish typically have the blushing cheeks but this tends to fade as they age, however there are other tell tale signs of a blushing fish, namely they tend to have clear dorsal, anal & caudal fins without any obvious striations, compare these fish :-

This is a smokey blushing veiltail (longer fins)


as they get older, blushing fish develop reflective patches on their bodies whilst in other areas the body retains a matte appearance



this by comparison is a (non blushing) smokey veiltail


Because it has a zebra gene the patterning in the fins is more obvious than normal, but hopefully you get the idea.

Another gene you will undoubtedly encounter or read about is called Philippine blue (usually abbreviated to pb) a fish with two copies of the gene will show a lot of blue colouration. eg

Smokey blue

This is quite a young fish so the striations in the dorsal fin aren't as prominent as in a fully mature fish, but they're hopefully still obvious when compared to a blushing blue smokey (ie paraiba smokey - blushing blue = paraiba).....



In blushing fish the pb gene both increases the number/extent of iridescent patches, it also causes them to reflect (under the right lighting) a turquoise blue.

HTH

hi again and thanks for that (some stunning angels in those photo's - wow) so from what you've explained I've taken it that my two angels may get some more of these blue markings as they age and grow?

I have noticed in certain positions - most likely the way the lights reflect off them - that there is a bit of blue coming through on the long trailing front fins (sorry, I'm rubbish at remembering all the different fin names but I'm sure you'll know what I mean). It's more obvious on Shadow but I'm guessing that is because 'he' is a little older than Misty.

I've taken it that my two angels may get some more of these blue markings as they age and grow?

Yes, but looking at them again, I'm fairly confident that they're not paraibas, so they're more likely to look like the fish in the first two photos rather than like the one in the last photo

okay, that's great. Thanks very much. There's bound to be more questions crop up as things go on. I did have a pair of angels dumped on me about 2 years back so I know a little bit about angels but not nearly enough. Unfortunately the two that were dumped on me (I bought a 2nd hand Rio 180 off a neighbour but he didn't tell me that the angels were included until he dumped them on me!) had to be re-homed as it was world war three everyday with a breeding pair of rams and a breeding pair of curviceps already in the tank!
Now my rams have passed on and curviceps has stopped spawning due to old age I can re-introduce some angels.

Where is the best place to post general questions on the site? I don't want to post in the wrong section!