Little newbie help plz...

[Morgan Freeman]

It seems I've become the go to guy for everything animal related. I need to set up a tank for a little girl who is obsessed with Angel fish, only the tank can't be too big, around 3ft long. This seems a little small to me?

I only know the basics of keeping fish so any advice welcome. I'll probably build the tank from scratch, I've built glass terrariums before so shouldn't be a problem once I've calculated appropriate glass width required and so on.

Halp.

[CoinOperatedGirl]

^ 3ft should be ok for 2-3 Angels, provided it's tall enough as Angels are quite deep bodied fish. They'll mix ok with medium sized fish (too big to fit into their mouths) generally so long the angels are introduced last as otherwise there may be territroy issues.

This : Think Fish - The Tropical Fish Keeping Resource - Calculators is a useful little tool to use if you're thinking about volumes/sizes etc, and that same site also has an excellent 'Community Creator' where you can check your planned stocking against tank size & fish temperament.

Make sure you post pics when it's done!!

[Morgan Freeman]

Cheers!

I was thinking of just going with angels only, rule out aggression issues.

[daftlassieEmma]

Originally Posted by Morgan Freeman

Cheers!

I was thinking of just going with angels only, rule out aggression issues.

could get some bottome dwellers, corys and smaller plec species etc. if she's interested that is

[The Chillinator]

So long as the tank is at least 46cm/18" long then she could easily have around three specimens. Personally I wouldn't bother with stocking calculators, as they tend to work on the 1" of fish per gallon 'rule' which nowadays is out of date. It's much better to use a combination of pure common sense and research.

[Esfa]

I'm guessing Pleccy means 18" high, not long.

[dan51]

personaly i like to keep angels in even numbers so there are so many pairs (however buying 4 and getting 2 males and 2 females is very unlikely, i kept and bred a pair in a 180L (90cm long) planted tank and they got on well with corydoras and rummynose tetras (great shoaling fish)

hope that helps

Dan

[The Chillinator]

Originally Posted by Esfa

I'm guessing Pleccy means 18" high, not long.

Sorry! Remind me never to type anything at 11:58pm.

To correct myself, the tank must be at least 18" high.

[Najiru]

First off I really wouldn't bother building a tank this size, stand etc maybe but the tank itself isn't worth the effort. You could pic up a new 3 footer up for between 20 and 50 quid depending on the other dimensions.

In terms of keeping angels get any decent fishkeeping book and it'll have everything you need to know or look through the fish forums. A cichlid specific one would be a good start but angels don't really need a great deal of special care.

I have had great success with fishless cycling using commercial ammonia to prepare tanks for delicate species and it allows you to fully stock the tank much more quickly than the traditional approach. Again lots of info about this on the web but you have to look at an empty tank for a week or two which puts people off.

Hope thats of some use