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I have a 46g bowfront s.a setup with one angel that I brought at the size of a dime which is now larger than a silver dollar I have also kept a school of 12 cardinals without a problem for about a year now. The Angel is definitely in control of the tank controlling his feeding territory and pushes a smaller angel and some rams out of the way when he thinks he's getting fed.

The other day I purchased 4 more cardinals because I really want to get the school bigger, but within a day 4 had died including some of my older ones from the original school of 12. What I believe happened was the tank was in a good balance between the size and number of cardinals, but when I introduced more the Angel couldn't handle it and killed off some of the school - - Interesting.

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That would the the last thing i would ever think of if i got 4 new neons and they all died, and more neons died.

I would honostly say that they couldnt adjust to your tank conditions, and the new neons died from maby a little ammo spike from the dead fish.

Also, the angle would eat the neons, not kill them (since in the wild they eat the neons)

You misunderstood. The new cardinals didn't die, the school was attached and I believe 3 of the 4 cardinals that died were the original group I had from the school of 12. Also these are cardinals not neons and are too big for the Angel to just ingest them. Also I have a 46g tank with zero ammonia the cardinals dying would not create a spike.



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I just added eight cardinal fry i found in my SA biotope into a nursery, and replaced the cardinals in the nursery into my larger tank, inhabited with angels. Interestingly, I also purchased a large full blackie a week ago, and I'm having no problems. . Did you witness the attacks? Because if you didn't I don't think the angel would have been the culprit. Adding more fish of the same kind does not usually result in latent aggression rearing it's ugly head.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 16-Dec-2004 22:04

Did you witness the Angel being aggressive towards the Cardinals?

What else is in the Tank?

Did you see the Angel kill the Tetras? Because they may have died from stress from the move, and i would think the Angel wouldn't mind a little nibble on some dead fish. That is if you thought it was the Angel because the dead Tetras were damaged.

Just my two cents.

-- Gomer

People, the Cards that are dying are not necessarily the new ones, some of my very solid group of 12 have died since adding the 4 new ones. So basically I bought 4 new cards to add to my school of 12 and instead of having 16 I am now down to 11. I had the school of 12 for about 1 year without any problems and then I added the four new ones and the Angel started to act funny. No other fish could have done it. I have blue rams, rummynoses, ottos and dwarf plecos.

I think I need a bigger tank or get rid of the angel.


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I don't think you need either. If you didn't witness the attack, I highly doubt it could've been the angel, as the fish was already conditioned to viewing the cardinals as threatless.

Is it possible that the new cardinals introduced a disease or pathogen that affected the weakest of the school?

I guess that's possible Joeyfish, but these fish dyed within 10 hours.

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Angels are known for letting current tetras in there tank but when they die or w/e and more are added the angels often eat them. But since you said there were some from the original school this couldnt have been the problem. The new fish may have killed some of the old ones or visea versa for sake of getting position in the school.

fish1 - I always wondered about the competitiveness within the school itself. You might be right, I wasn't sure how aggressive a school would be. It seems that I could never maintain a school of 16 or 17 and I always end up with about 12.

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