30G UK tank-after interesting & unusual fish - angels?

[jaarus]

I have got a new tank - its a UK 30 gallon (which I think is about 33 gallon US)

I really want this to be a community tank with 'interesting' fish.
Bright colours, interesting shapes etc

I really like angels - but heard they grow fast and get big - so better rule them out (which is a pity) unless....are there any smaller varieties of them?


Dont want anything that gets over about 5" really. And my fiance hates Pleco's and similar!!


Please post your 30g community suggestions - really need some advice here!


(The tank is going to be rock and bogwood mainly - lots of caves and crannys with lots of plants to add colour and break it up a bit.)

[TCTFish]

You can house a single angel with other fish without running out of room or dealing with breeding behavior (cause there'd be only one) and should be the only cichlid species in the community tank. They can reach 10" from top fin to bottom, but only get about 5" long and it takes them their life spans to reach that big. The babies grow to half that size within a couple of years. Growth rate then slows down considerably. I think they can live for at least 10 to 15 years. That's a guess, so it would take that long to reach 10" high.

There are certain rules to go by when having an angel mixed with smaller fish. The smaller, more docile fish MUST be established first or they WILL become lunch instead of tank mates. I know this from experience. The angel should also be introduced when juvenile. It can 'grow up' with the smaller fish. My ideal South American tank that someday I may be able to put up would have angels, neons and blue rams...and of course the llittle cory cats. I've done a version of that in a 55 with two pairs of angels and a school of neons. I just didn't have the rams. I lost the neons after taking them out of the 55 and polaced in a ten of their own and decided I really liked them in the 55 with the angels. That is when the angels ate them all. As I mentioned...the smaller fish MUST be established first and the angels juvenile when introduced. I learned that first hand. Oh how heartbreaking because it did make for a beautiful to look at tank. The neons gave it that splash of color whereas the angels broke off some of that color with their blacks and grays to balance the scene.

Other nice, small to medium sized community fish...

Neon dwarf rainbows, tetras of about any kind that are small, ddwarf gouramis, though only one or a pair in a smaller tank, cory cat fish, otocinclus for algae control. There are also exotic shrimp that are great filter feeders and help keep nitrates low. The one I know of is the flower shrimp. They get 4" and have flowerette appendages instead of claws to catch tiny particles of food debris. Really neat and different. If you do a natural tank with live plants, there are FW clams that do the same...filter feed small partiles of food debris. There are plecos taht don't get super huge and make a total mess of things...LOL like the little bushy noses and wide mouth plecos that do very well with algae control...and better than the common plecos. They are safe with live plants and only get 4". The bushynoses have these unique clubs of spikes on their cheeks as well as the funky appendage on their nose

Bumble bee gobies are cool. Great little fish. A bit delicate but neat. If you don't have smaller fish, the fan dancer gobies are really nice. The leopard ctenopoma is a unique looking fish. They do hang more in the shadows, but they add that unique appearance in shape. For a tank housing smaller unique fish, there are celebes rainbows, threadfin rainbows, celebes half beaks...the platniums are gorgeous!!. Silver hatchets are unique in shape. The little killifish are very colorful, though expensive and short lived. Nice fish if you're into breeding them. Pencil fish are nice...sparkling gouramis are perhaps the smallest gourami I ever saw. They get a whopping one inch...whoohoo...LOL. There are so many neat little and medium sized fish. Just read on any of their requirements and adult sizes before purchasing.

Happy Fishing

[jaarus]

Whoah - now thats a reply!

Thank you ever so much - loads of fish to research now!



EDIT
So can these (below) could be kept in the same tank as an Angel or do they all want the same area of the tank?

Blue Paradise Gouramis
Dwarf Gouramis

both very pretty coloured fish.

I would like say 2x angels, 2x Dwarf gouramis and maybe a school of cardinal tetras?

[TomK2]

Angels are great to have, if only you could cram a tank full of them like you see at the LFS! I have two in a 55. If you get them, they must be of similar size and bought at the same time. Mixing angels of different ages and at different times can really be a disaster! If you went with two adolescents or two juvenile ones in a 33 gal tank, you probably could not have many other fish in there once the angels grew. I wouls also make the Angel(s) the last fish introduced.

[TomK2]

Oh, and check out ElMer's community tank planning web pages!

http://www.elmersaquarium.com/index.htm

follow the FW links to the aquarium handbook, and they have several types of community tank stocking suggestions.

I pretty much have a community tank type 4 - built around angels.