Hello, hopefully I put this in the right area (I figured it was more community based than Angelfish specific). Anyway, I have decided to get my old 38 gallon tank back up and running after a few years of hiatus. I have decided I'd like to start with Angelfish and build a community tank around that. I am new to Angels but I do have experience with other cichlids (Tanganyika). I would like to get a sand substrate and will be sticking to artificial plants. So here is my current idea of how to stock it.
-Some sort of fancy Pterophyllum scalare variety likely black lace. I don't know if I could get two or if I should just stick with one, I really do not want any more than two.
-1 Bristlenose Pleco Ancistrus temminckii
-6-8 small tetras, Lemon Hyphessobrycon pulchripinnis , black skirt Gymnocorymbus ternetzi or possibly some other species. I am very open to suggestions concerning this
-6 corydoras catfish, Corydoras sterbai are my favourite right now, but I am also open for suggestions if anyone else knows of any other attractive corys

Those are the ones I have been considering, but if anyone has any suggestions or thinks they may be additional space (I don't really think so) for something else please tell me.

Thanks, Sean

I'm becoming a huge fan of cardinal tetras. Sooo pretty in a big group!

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

I also like Cardinal Tetras, I just always thought they were a little too small for Angels. Have you had experience with the two together? It would be really cool if I could have both together.

I am really liking my Harlequin Rasbora. My wife picked them out and I didn't really like them at first, but they have really grown on me. You could replace the tetras with these.

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29 gal planted,7 Harlequin Rasbora, 8 Neon Tetra,3 Bolivian Rams,3 Albino Cory,2 Emerald Green Cory
55 gal Lake Malawi
15 gal betta tank

Your close!... Black skirt tets? Stay away from them if ya want angels.. fin-nippers...
Cardinals & Angels.. perfect peaceful co-existance and gorgeous fish. A school of at least 6, hopefully a school of 12 or MORE!.
Cory's?.. I've got 10 Lazor Orange in my discus tank, 12 Alongphina (sp) in my Angel tanks.
A solo Angel?.. Why deprive it of company?.. I'm keeping 1 dozen plus the dithers/pleco's in a 125.. (Just harvested 48 fry) and another dozen or so in a 155G... (Prepping a spawn site now)...
Good luck with your pursuit. Bill in Va.

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12 Tanks, 900 gallons. Discus/Angels/Malawi/Lake Victorias. Just added a 135 & 2 - 29's..

Bill, do you think its best to have just two angels or more? Like I said, I would prefer to stick to no more than two so that I can also house a range of other species. That being said, I would still like the tank to be built around the comfort of the angels. As for the cardinals, I have done some reading with very mixed findings. Some people say that Cardinals and Angels never work, while other say they are perfect and there is a third group that say it works but only if I introduce a juvenile angel to adult cardinals. What are your experiences? Thanks a lot.
Ron, I also kinda like the Rasboras, but would prefer cardinals.

I wouldn't put too much in a 38 - I've got a 36g with Angels and since they are going to get big, I had to choose just 2 other species to go with them.

I have 1 marbled Veil Tail angel and 1 Silver striped angel. I got them when their bodies were about quarter size and put them in with my already almost full grown 9 Harlequin Rasboras. My hope is that since they will be growing up with the Rasboras, they will view them as tank mates and not food - so far so good, as their bodies are now Oreo cookie and chocolate chip cookie size.

I also have 2 Clown Plecos and 3 Mystery snails in the tank. It is also fairly heavily planted and has lots of rocks and drift wood.

It's best not to over crowd the tank, since Angels do get quite large.

I also have 2 filters on the tank to help handle the high bioload of 2 small pleco species, 9 Rasboras and 2 large cichlids (the angels.) I have 1 Aquaclear 70 (for a 70g tank) and an Aqueon 30 (for 45g tanks.)

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Buying two angels at .25 cent piece size will take ya two years or more for them to outgrow your tank and introduce crowding. If you're lucky, you'll trip into a pair of breeders. At that point, if you can get their spawn to free-swimming stage, you could then turn around and sell them off. Std. Silver breeders for at least $30.00 for the pair and on up depending upon the variety of Angels you start with. Then start over!
I've never had an issue with Angels pursuing anything other than other Angels that are trying to get to their spawn.
Another option from Cards would be black neons.. tight schooler's almost to the point ya swear their robots... But.. Cards are my fav. dither fish..... Bill in Va.

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12 Tanks, 900 gallons. Discus/Angels/Malawi/Lake Victorias. Just added a 135 & 2 - 29's..

For what it's worth, I'll tell you what I have. I started in the hobby 9mo ago w/ a 38gal, and stocked it with a silver striped angel,a gold marble angel, 3glo fish(per kids), and a rts. Everybody gets along great. No nipping or anything. With that said, I just moved glo fish into a 10gal for kids room, and I'm looking to move to a larger tank so I can add discus and clown loaches with my angels and rts.

Angels and Discus can be kept together, but they share the same diseases. Since Discus are so expensive, it's not really worth risking an angel getting sick and spreading it to the discus. I've also been told that discus are lazy eaters, so you have to make specifically sure they are getting enough food. (Thanks JC!)

Since both fish get quite large, as does the shark, you are going to need a very large tank.

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Ummm... Discus and Angels can be kept together but... (always a "but" with me).. Angels are aggressive feeders while Discus are more sedate... That's the only thing that keeps me from mixing them in the same tank. Bill in Va.

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12 Tanks, 900 gallons. Discus/Angels/Malawi/Lake Victorias. Just added a 135 & 2 - 29's..

I had always read that Cards would get eaten eventually by Angels, but you can find the two together in many, many pics of tanks. I have had them together for over a year and have never experienced that behavior until I added 50 more Cards recently. I watched two Cards get eaten by my Angels. Based on what I watched occur, I believe that if you have a Card that isn't familiar with his surroundings and wanders in front of an Angel and pauses even slightly, there is a chance that there could be a half-hearted pursuit from the Angel and if the Card doesn't move, it's gone. It was what I watched in both instances. So when you introduce new Cards, you may want to occupy your Angels at the opposite end of your tank somehow - lesson learned for me. I have also recently seen one of my Angels move toward a Card when the light is out and the tank is semi-lit from a room light at night. Again a half-hearted attempt, but if the Card had not moved, it would have been his last night watching TV for sure.

Thanks for the responses everyone.
Holly, I have an Emperor 280 (up to 50 gallon tanks) on my aquarium and I was think it would need a little help with what will be a fairly large bio-load. I was thinking of maybe getting another smaller filter that is recommended to 30 gallons or so, so I would have a combined recommended total of 80 gallons (roughly double the size of my tank). Do you think that would be suitable? I noticed you are using a recommended 115 gallons. Do you think it's perfect or would you say its a little overkill?

Thanks, Sean

I'm sure a smaller filter for a 30g tank would be fine - giving you 80g's of filtration. I haven't noticed any problems with the filtration that I have though... everyone seems happy, so I'm happy. You can never over filter, but you can under filter. I figure, since I have 2 Clown Plecos and 3 Mystery snails (plus a bunch of pest snails) that more filtration is better cause they are big time poopers, lol.

(My 20g only has 50g of filtration on it, so only 30g more than the size of the tank, and everyone in there is happy - I just happened to have an extra AC 70 laying around, so it went on the 36g along with the Aqueon that came with the tank. Otherwise, I probably would have gotten an AC 50 or something.)

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Alright, here's an updated stocking list:
-1 BN Pleco
-2 Angels
-10 or so Cardinal Tetras. I don't really know how many. More? Less?
-6 Corydoras
To accommodate the fairly large bio load I will be supplementing my Emperor 280 with a Penguin 150B because they are both Marineland and I am very happy with my Emperor.

I wouldn't add any more than 10 since the tank will be heavily stocked. Try and get the Angels really young, so they can grow up "used" to the cards and maybe not view them as food.... I was told to do that with mine and the Rasboras... so far it's working... we'll see in the future though, since the rasboras are still too big to be eaten.

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If an Angel will eat Cards it will eat Cards. Buying them young may inprove some odds, but a fish doesn't reason amd you can't take out instinct.

Very good point. I think I might just get rid of the Cardinals and not replace them with a different schooler but just get one more Angel.

I say that, but I have about 50 cards and 4 Angels. I only know of 2 they have. 3 of my Angels were bought at a very young age about 14 months ago.

Lol, I like to believe my fish reason! ;)

Anyway, so far the Rasboras are ok with them... but then, the Angels can't fit them in their mouths as of yet.... time will tell.

Good luck and post pics when you get things set up.

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