fighting angels

I'm really pleased with how my crypt balansae is doing in the 45. It's getting visibly taller each day, obviously happy with conditions. Encourages me to find a way to move in my aponogeton capuronii.

But now my angels have been fighting. Agression has been building up gradually and I did not take the signs seriously, hoping they were just sizing each other up, working out differences. For a while I have noticed, now and then, that one or the other would have scraped scales, and last week Skye had a small tear in her tail fin. I dismissed it, thinking they were just getting bumped by falling sticks. But I've fixed that now; even when I put my hands in the tank to rearrange things and position the crypt balansae, I no longer knock anything over.

The other day I noticed that the angels were making little rushes at each other. Sometimes I sit in front of the tank when it's not feeding time, just to observe. The angels come up expectantly, and if I don't offer food, they seem to get frustrated- moving back and forth across the front glass with sharper jerks. So this one day I sat there and couldn't tell if the angels were turning and darting to move across the front and happening to get near each other, or if they were actually aiming at each other.

Then one day I saw them going up and down sticks, picking stuff off with their mouths. I wondered if they were hungry, or was it cleaning behavior to prepare a spawning site? Mr. Beautiful has been looking rather stout, and doesn't seem to eat more than Skye, so I wonder if he's really female. They were also doing brief displays at each other, holding their fins out more stiffly, kind of quivering broadside and puffing out the gills. It was subtle, but I saw it. Showing off to each other, or vying for dominance? I'm not sure. I still don't know if I have a same-sex pair, or a male and female. (I did not see any lip-locking, which I've read is a mating precursor- they wrestle with the lips to test each other's strength).

Yesterday I saw clear evidence of deliberate harm. In the morning (day after a regular water change) I found that both fish had tears in their fins, and Skye's dorsal is almost completely ripped in half. They both have scuff marks and scrapes on their flanks,

and Skye has a bite mark on top of her head, and a dark red blotch between eye and mouth, like a bruise. Did the other fish ram her, or did she flee and run into something? Dismayed, I watched them closely. Skye obviously has more injuries, and Mr. Beautiful appears to be the aggressor. I saw Beautiful turn his (or her) body horizontal and zoom across the tank to jab at Skye.

I am pretty sure now, they don't like each other. Skye is thinner than Beautiful- I wonder if the more aggressive angel is subtly keeping her from eating as much, or if she is thinner due to stress, or if Beautiful is larger because a her, and gravid.

And my issue is what to do about it. I can't really put a divider in this tank. My fishkeeping friend suggested I do extra water changes, rearrange the decor, and maybe add dither fish, to alleviate the aggression. I'd rather actually re-home this fish and try with another, but it is still discouraging. The only other place I can safely put Skye while I find her a new home is in the 20H- the exact reason I kept it running, but now it's full of tetras. . .