Queen Angelfish

Holacanthus ciliaris

Also known as Golden Angelfish, Yellow Angelfish

SaltwaterFish

Queen Angelfish (Holacanthus ciliaris) — Pedro Lastra · CC BY-SA 2.0

Care at a glance

Temperature: 75–81°F (24–27°C)
pH: 8.1–8.4
Adult size: 17.7 in (45 cm)
Minimum tank: 251 gal (950 L)
Temperament: Aggressive
Social behavior: Solitary
Swim level: Middle
Difficulty: Difficult
Breeding: Hard
Rarity: Common
Reef safe: Not reef safe
Origin: Western Atlantic, from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico south to Brazil, including the Caribbean
Family: Pomacanthidae

Overview

Queen angelfish are bold and can turn genuinely aggressive as they settle in, so they go into a tank last, after everything else has claimed its territory. They need a very large, mature system with room to patrol and a varied diet of sponge-based angelfish preparations, marine algae, and mysis or frozen shrimp fed several times a day. They are not reef safe: they routinely nip at soft and stony corals and clam mantles, so keep this one in a fish-only or FOWLR setup instead of a mixed reef.

In the wild

Queen angelfish live on Caribbean and western Atlantic coral reefs from about 1 to 70 meters deep, usually alone or in pairs that hold a patch of reef. Juveniles set up cleaning stations on the rocks and pick parasites off other fish that line up to be serviced, a job they retire from once they mature. In the aquarium they need a very large, mature tank with extensive live rock arranged into caves and ledges, since a young queen angelfish outgrows a modest setup fast.

Good to know

Holacanthus ciliaris can reach about 45 cm and 1.6 kg, one of the larger angelfish in the Atlantic. The juvenile is deep blue with curving pale blue and white bars, completely unlike the adult, which turns blue green with each scale rimmed in yellow and a dark spot ringed in electric blue on the forehead, the 'crown' that gives the species its common name. The shift from juvenile pattern to adult coloring happens gradually as the fish grows past about 10 to 12 cm.

Did you know

As juveniles, queen angelfish run cleaning stations where larger fish stop and hold still to have parasites picked off, a service the young angelfish drops entirely once it grows past its cleaner phase and starts holding its own reef territory.