birddancer

I'd appreciate some advice . We got our first angelfish about 4 or 5 weeks ago with a gourami, 2 loaches and 2 plecos. They're were all very very small none of them any bigger than 2.5cm or so (in the body). They all got along well for about a week but before too long the angelfish had "stalked" the gourami to death (he used to get him into a corner and poor gourami would put his feelers out at him). A couple of weeks after the gourami died he became a little depressed (stopped being his usual active self and less eating) so we figured he was lonely. We bought another angel who was a fair bit smaller than him (by now he was easily nudging 4cm), they started to bond really well - hanging out together sleeping side by side etc. But recently the silver one has had a growth spurt also and is now bigger than our original. He bunts at him everytime I feed them and now he will not feed with the others (i have to syringe feed him). He has had most of his tail fins nipped at by the loaches and now we have moved him into a 52 gallon tank by himself but he looks terribly lonely . My husband wants to add some more fish but I would like to be able to guarantee he will not be bullied again. Is there any species that angelfish particularily get along with? I'd be wary getting anything too fast moving because for obvious reasons he was getting quite shy of the loaches even when they were just playing with each other near him.

fish_newbie

Hi birddancer. Welcome to fishlore. I'm sorry for the lost of your gourami and the troubles that you are experiencing. Angels would get along well with a school of neons or cardinal tetras, corydoras would make perfect tank mates, I've never seen or heard of any problems occur with cory and angels. A lot of fish profiles said that loaches are friendly, but truely, the only one that I've seen that is truely harmless is the khulii loach, other loaches (clowns, Pakistani, dojo) that I've kept had all attacked other fish. The fins that are ripped will heal over time, make sure to provide him with good food and clean water and he should be back up and running. Wish you the best.

birddancer

Thanks heaps,

I love my loaches But there is one fat one who picks on everyone (even the other clowns, but for some reason they all still love him and follow him around lol).

coffeebean

my angel is in with kuhli loaches, platies, swordtails and long finned rosey barbs. the barbs can be a bit bossy. platys are good tank mates i think though.

harpua2002

Adult angels will eat neons and other fish of that size. They are ambush predators. Cardinals get larger than neons and are a good option IME. Larger tetras like lemon, Colombian, and diamond make great tankmates. Just avoid nippy tetras like serpaes, Buenos Aires, etc.

Corys are another good choice, and my angel does just fine with 3 species of loaches (botia robusta, botia lochata, schistura mahnerti).

Neji

Well Angelfishes are cichlids, and they do get territorial. More when Angelfishes are mating. I usually followed an old setup for fishes that my friends had done for more than 15 years now.

First you add all of the fishes you want, like Cardinal Tetras, Glow light tetras, black skirt tetras, scissor tail rasboras, hatchet fish, danios etc, and then you add the angelfishes last. Since they won't be aggressive to the fishes. The only time they will be aggressive is when the Angelfish is the first fish to be introduced into the tank. Or when you add in another angelfish that is the same size or smaller.

I have currently a very aggressive angelfish so I don't put in any new fishes except for danios or any fast fishes but would not attack my angel. I have added a Turquoise Severum into my tank before with the angel. Both of them had a perfect temper with each other. Until the Angel started to be more aggressive. But the Severum would always fight back. So I had to put the severum into a different tank. It is the ONLY one in there now. My angelfish still stays in the big tank with a small golden severum. The severum doesn't attack my angel because the severum is 5x smaller than the angelfish.

It's best to keep the angelfishes with fishes that are fast enough to get away. Although when angelfishes get older. Most of them tend to be lazy, and others still have a lot of strength and stamina inside of them even when they are more than 6 yrs old.