Variety of Angelfish

Marble angelfish

Pterophyllum scalare

One of 9 varieties of Pterophyllum scalare · See all varieties →

FreshwaterFish

Marble angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) — The Wet Spot Tropical Fish · Used with permission

Varieties · Pterophyllum scalare

See all 9 →

Care at a glance

Temperature: 75–86°F; 24–30°C
pH: 6.0–7.5
Adult size: 5.9 in; 15 cm
Minimum tank: 30 gal; 115 L

Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Social
Swim level: Middle
Difficulty: Easy
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Very common
Family: Cichlidae

Overview

No two marbles are marked alike and shops sell them ungraded, so pick the individual fish rather than trusting the tank label. Coverage runs from a few black smears on white to nearly solid black. A young fish's pattern can keep shifting as it grows, so the marbling you buy is not always the marbling you end up with.

In the wild

The marble pattern is a tank mutation with no wild counterpart. Chuck Ash produced the first marbles around 1969 and described them that year in The Aquarium magazine. Joanne Norton later separated seven genetically different marbles, since the amount of black depends on dose and on which other genes the fish carries.

Good to know

Marble is an allele at the dark locus, and Norton found that a homozygous fish carries a more extensive black pattern than a heterozygous one, so one dose gives the familiar patchwork and two doses give a blacker fish. It shares that locus with dark, gold marble and new gold, so any fish carries at most two of them. The black is laid down in irregular patches rather than to a fixed template, which is why siblings from one spawn rarely match.

Did you know

Marble is not a black fish crossed with a silver one. It is a single mutation that turned up in one breeder's tanks in 1969, and crossing a marble back to a plain silver gives marbled fry and plain silvers rather than a blend of the two.

Weekly picks

Tank mates

Marble angelfish is a mostly peaceful, social species that keeps to the middle. These picks share a community profile with it, are safe together in both directions, and overlap on water type, temperature and pH.

Check the full mix in the stocking calculator