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Hey all,
I recently experienced the horror of watching my angelfish kill some neons I bought. I promptly removed them, the 10 who were remaining, and felt sorry for the 4 who got eaten. However, my boyfriend and I have discussed this, and we feel it would be OK to have Pete the Angel eat some neons. Neons are cheap, colorful, and add a nice splash of blue to the 90g.
We have decided we will probably keep a nice large school of neons around, both for pete to snack on, and to fulfill the color wish.
My question is, How many neons would it take, to keep neons around for awhile, but to allow Pete to have a snack every now and then? How many would he eat in one day??
He is approx. the size of a small tea saucer, so around 3 inches in diameter I would say. A fair size Angelfish.
So yeah, how many would I need, and how often would I need to purchase more do you think?
At the end of september I will be looking for a mate for pete hopefully, so the number of Angels will be 2.


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Well ive never put neons with my angel so I cant say for sure but my angelfish would eat till he would burst if I kept feeding him. He already gets bloated sometimes when I accidently give him too much food. If your angel is like mine, have such a large ammount of food around him 24/7 might not be good and you may loose them pretty quickly. I mean look how fast you lost the 4. Maybe you should try getting Cardinal Tetras instead since theyre larger and such. They are just like neons except the stripes go all the way down and they get slightly larger.

[span class="edited"][Edited by Bearded Frog 2004-08-19 01:34][/span]

The only problem with that is, I have never seen Cardinal Tetras around here at all. In my area, Neons are probably the most popular fish of all, and I have never seen a cardinal at all! Ive been to 3 different cities looking, and nothing. We dont have that much of a selection of fish around here, its kind of lame.
No marbled hatchetfish, no cardinals, no rummynose, rarely emperor tetras, never any plecos that are unusual, unless you count the ones they want 299 bucks and up for, and those are ones any american could buy online for around 60 bucks!
Its not like there isnt enough people around here, over 1 million on the south island, but just not much for fish selection.
Its a shame really.


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I wouldn't do it, but a good school of Neons will be very beautiful with Angels. Yes, they'll eat them, but that's not your problem, so you can have about 20 Neons with your Angel. Just remember that you must have a good sized tank for this & some plants so the Neons can hide in.

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I have a 90g tank, and it is currently becoming more planted as time goes by. By the end of next month it should be much more heavily planted.
I just thought what could be more natural than angels and their natural prey fish?
I wonder if the angels would be more healthy having live food? Would having neons around for lunch urge spawning behaviour on?



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Live food is the best you can feed them. You can also add a couple of Corydoras to your setup.

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Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
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i've always had neons with angels, and never had that kind of problem. you just have to make sure and get larger tetras... even if you have to keep them in a seperate tank yo get bigger. I've got 3 blakc tetras... a blood fin.. a lemon and a school of neons. But they are all about 2 inches long and fat so maybe thats why mine haven't eaten them.

me

If you can get truely jumbo sized neons, Pete might decide to leave them be, or not... Small angels that grow up in a large planted tank with jumbo neons often continue to view them as non-edible.

You don't want to be buying neons as feeder fish for numerous reasons.

Neons would be very expensive live food on an ongoing basis. Repeatedly introducing new neons for Pete to eat will mean risking introducing disease and or parasites into your big tank - not an accepatable risk IMO and very costly to treat a 90 gal tank when the inevitable happens, unless you QT the new neons for a least 2 weeks every time you go get more.

If you really want Pete to be able to hunt live prey, keep some guppies. Pete would likely leave large female guppies alone, but he will ensure the numerous guppy fry do not survive to overpopulate the tank. Or you could keep a pair of convicts or other easily bred fish in a smaller tank and harvest the fry to feed to Pete. But feeding frozen mysis shrimp is far easier.

Usually if the angel grows up with the neons, the angel will not mess with the neons.

BTW, I would not recommend using neons as feeders. They are not meant to be used as feeders.

[span class="edited"][Edited by xxmrbui3blesxx 2004-08-22 17:38][/span]

I would never use neons as feeders, you're risking the health of your angel and the whole tank. As a popular fish, neons are generally not in good condition when you buy them and are often disease ridden IME. I would go with what another member posted and get some livebearers. Your angel would be more than happy to keep the fry population down, and in a 90 gallon tank you have more than enough room for those that manage to escape him.

On the topic of live food, I see so many fishkeepers advocating it and for most cases IMO it's really unnecessary and hazardous to use feeders at all. With the great selection of live and frozen foods availabe at the LFS like bloodworms, etc. there's really no need to feed anything that swims.

Just my 2 cents.

well, the resounding agreeance about feeding neons to pete seems to be that while live food is good for him, neons are just too chancy with health problems.
I have decided against giving neons to sneaky pete.
I am going to attempt to find some kind of insect I can perhaps raise to him and feed him instead.
thanks for all the info everyone!


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Why an insect? I'de say just hatch brine shrimp in a 5 gallon bowl and raise them for feeding- much more safe, much more simple. I've also never met a dwarf cichlid that doesn't love bloodworms, though all I feed is frozen. You could also try looking into cultures for other kinds of worms and larvae.