worried about my angels

On Sunday I moved my angelfish pair into their own tank as they were causing chaos in my community tank. I thought that moving them into a tank on their own would be better as they can breed without disruption, and any eggs/fry will be safe from preditors plus the community tank would go back to be relaxed

Since moving them all they have pretty much done is sit in a corner staring at the wall. Yesterday I had a bit of lip locking from them but it didn't last long and then they were back in the corner.
On a Monday night I would normally feed frozen blocks of Mysis to all my stock and so I put some aside for the angels. Normally they'd go crazy and be total glutons but not last night. I used my turkey baster to drop in some mysis little bit by little bit but they barely ate any. In the end I gave up and ended up using my air powered sand vac to suck it all up (it's one of those where the detritus goes into a cotton bag so you don't need to top up any water)
Before going to bed I dropped in 3 small cichlid pellets right in front of them hoping that with the lights out they'd eat it. They just looked at it. The pellets have gone this morning and been replaced by several bits of normal looking poo so they did eat them eventually and they are poo-ing normally so I'm not worried this is Hexamita.

When I set up the seperate tank for them (a Juwel Rekord 800) I decided seen as I was going to be looking at it all day it may aswell be nice. I added some playsand, a piece of very nice redmoor wood, some rocks and planted with red cabomba, echinodurus and lileaopsis. I was aiming to create an amazon biotope inspired tank. I was also hoping that having a planted home with some decor would make them feel safe but I've failed by the looks of it!

Last night I wondered if the lighting was the problem and so I pulled all the floating leaves off my tigar lotus plant in my other main tank and added that to the angels tank to provide some shade ... that's not helped either so now I have a main community tank that did have lots of floating lily pad leaves that now looks a mess!! grr

On Sunday afternoon I collected a few dead oak leaves and I was planning to add them to the angels tank to see if I could get the water to stain brown but I've had my dad (also a fish keeper of over 40 years) in my ear hole telling me if I add them and my fish die ... blah blah blah ... and now I'm too scared to add them.

I guess I could use some advice from the angelfish experts here.

Thanks in advance

As long as the water quality remains reasonable, I'm sure they'll be fine.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of moving fish to a new tank, the fish are anxious about the move, so they're shy & nervous, wary of feeding, so the aquarist starts fiddling with things, which makes them more nervous & less inclined to feed, so the aquarist starts lobbing more and different foods into the tank, which add to the biological load, so the filter struggles, the water quality deteriorates, so the fish get more nervous & less inclined to feed, and so on....

Angels will be fine without eating for a fortnight or more, it sounds like you've done a good job on setting the tank up so that ultimately they'll feel relaxed and comfortable. So just leave them to it. Different pairs react differently to being moved, some can parade up & down like nothing's happened, others take weeks to settle in. Patience is a virtue!

Personally I'd stop feeding them for a couple of days, then when they're feeling hungry they're much more likely to come out looking for food, and to respond positively when fed!

Since posting yesterday morning they have started to pick up very very slowly. They are very slow to feed now rather than not wanting to feed at all. I'm not falling into the trap of chucking in loads of food to try and force them to eat like you've mentioned ... I'm keeping in mind that this filter has been seeded and is been helped along my 2 handfuls of ceramics from one of my externals on my main tank and it's not going to take much for it to start struggling to cope.

I decided yesterday that I would stay away from the tank as much as possible, leave them to explore and settle and so I left the lights on all day rather than plunge them into darkness only to switch them back on again later (I have my lights on for a couple of hours in a morning, then off until teatime then back on until I go to bed) I also did some research on adding leaves and discovered that the oak leaves I had collected were perfectly safe to use so I'm added a few to the tank in the hope that the water will start turning brown and the angels will feel more relaxed.

One thing I did think of was the theory on dither fish. I've read a bit about how the shoaling species 'dithering' about can help shy or nervous fish to feel safe. My main tank has emperor tetra's, neon tetra's and harlequins and I wondered if that is why the angels no longer feel 'safe'.
Obviously, this new tank being a breeding set up, I don't want to be adding ditherers to help them feel safe but I did wonder about a few otocinclus to help me with maintenance. My only concern is would the angels try to eat oto's? I've heard about them eating neons (and I will be keeping a close eye on my neons in the main tank as there's still two female angels in there) and any fish small enough to fit in their mouths but I've not heard or read anything about them eating oto's

Dither fish could help, but could also get picked on or eat the babies, I certainly wouldn't recommend ottos in a breeding tank with a pair of angels, but they'd be great in a tank with the babies once the parents have been moved out! Glad to hear that they seem to be settling in, chances are if you give them a few days and they'll be at the front demanding food, or trying to chase you away, once they decide they're ready to start a family.

I've just been reading horror stories online about angelfish trying to eat oto's and the spines of the oto's getting stuck in their throats... it's really worrying me now as I have 5 oto's in my main tank that contains the two 'spare' female angels. How likely is it that one of these female angels will try to eat one of my oto's? 4 out the 5 oto's are really really fat - huge belly's on them but I have one that's really small and that one could fit in a full grown angels mouth easily.

It's left me wondering if I should re-home the two spare angels or get rid of my oto's ... not a choice I want to make to be honest

As for the breeding pair ... well I added some twisted vallis to their tank today ... I'm hoping if I plant it more they will settle better. They went into the corner while I planted the vallis but their both investigating it now and seem fine. It's getting close to feeding time so hopefully they might be more enthusiastic about food this afternoon