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I'm cycling the tank now and would like to stock it with angels and maybe some bottom feeders. I'm partial to cories. How many angels should I keep ( I heard an odd number is better) and what is compatible with the angels?

Let me take a sec and thank everyone here. Coming from a beginner, this site really pushes the hobby with loads of experience. I hope to be able to answer a question in the future, lol.

Hi there,
55g is a nice tank size for Angelfish.
I think you could keep a nice group of Angels
in that tank, 4-6 of them. I havent really
noticed any difference between odd or even number
groupings of angels.
Then you could put in a nice group of Corys,
like 8-10 of once kind, and then a nice group
of schooling fish, like Rummynose tetras
or dwarf rainbowfish or something like that.


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Thanks sneaky. 4 angels, 10 cories, and a school of 6 or 8 schoolers wouldn't be overstocking? I also have a 10g with 4 cories, 5 neon tetras, a dwarf gourami, and another gourami (orange, longer, fatter body) The last two seemed to be crowded in the small tank.

I dont think thats overstocked. Not to me anyway.
Nicely planted and with decent filtration it should
be easy to maintain.

The gold gourami could go in your big tank.
They grow to about 4-5 inches.


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4 Angels, 10 Corydoras & a school of 8 Tetras would be fine for a 55 gal. tank but the 10 gal. tank is overstocked with 4 Corydoras, 5 Neon Tetras & 2 Gouramis.

I would add the 4 Neons in the 55 gal. tank & buy some more, so you'll have a decent school.


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55g- 4 angels, the 2 gouramis, and maybe some cuckoo catfish, the gravel is smaller and sharper than the 10g so I'm concerned for the cory's mouths. Are cats similiar to the cories in that respect?

10g- 5 neons and 4 peppered cories

whatcha think?

Er, hold on a moment ...

'Cuckoo Catfish' ... that sounds alarm bells.

The reason? The fishes that I know of as being called 'Cuckoo Catfishes' are members of the Genus Synodontis that are native to Africa Rift Lakes, fishes such as Synodontis multipunctatus from Lake Tanganyika and the similar Synodontis petricola. These fishes require hard, alkaline water that is massively incompatible with your other fishes. Plus, they're 6 inch plus catfishes, and candidates for a sizeable aquarium as they're active. Water parameters for these fishes are something like pH 8.6, hardness 20 degrees dH and upwards, and they're unlikely to survive in the kind of water that Amazonian fishes such as Angels and Corys prefer.

If your Gourami goes in with the Angels (fortunately, most Gouramis are also lovers of soft, acidic water, hailing from similar conditions even though they're on a different continent) then this will restrict your options somewhat. I certainly would NOT put Neons in that tank, because if you do, the Angel Fishes in particular may come to regard the Neons as lunch. Remember that Angel Fishes are predatory fishes, and probably include Tetra fry and even some juvenile Tetras in their diet when fully grown, certainly fishes of the size of Neons would be in danger alongside a good sized adult Angel Fish.

Corys would be compatible with the Angels outside of breeding, but once the Angels began breeding, you would have to take steps to deal with the possibility that the Corys might want to help themselves to some caviar! Whereupon the Angel fishes would respond in the typical manner of parental Cichlids all over the world - attack the threat to their eggs and fry. Either you would have to arrange some means of keeping the Corys away from the eggs until they hatched and the fry were free swimming (whereupon the Corys would no longer be a threat) or you'd have to remove the eggs and rear them artificially. Angel Fishes may be stately, graceful and less obviously 'Cichlid like' in appearance and behaviour to the casual observer, but Cichlids they most assuredly are, with the added complication of being able to deploy their Cichlid behaviours in a stealthy manner in the right environment.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

You're right, the cats require a much higher PH. How about 2 angels, 4 bosemani rainbows, 2 gouramis, and some cories. Or 4 angels, 2 gouramis and some cories. Or keep the cories away from the angels in case of spawning? Will the gouramis be threatened if the angels lay eggs? Thanks