Acquiring a planted tank!!

[saltwaternewbie12]

So tomorrow I am going to pick up my brothers 55 gallon planted tank. I'm a little nervous because I have never had planted before. I have had freshwater and a reef tank though, so I'm hoping this will kinda be in the middle of the 2 as far as difficulty. He currently has 3 angels, 3 platys, 2 corydoras, 2 otos, and 4 Chinese algae eaters. Thes fish are all HUGE! I want to get rid of some so I can add a school of smaller fish to it. What should I get rid of and what should I replace it with? Thanks!

 

[TotallyCoral]

Hello! You'd probably be better off ditching the Chinese algae eaters because I've heard horror stories of them getting huge and aggressive for the community aquarium. You could most definitely keep a school of tetras then.

 

[Zimmanski]

Hello! You'd probably be better off ditching the Chinese algae eaters because I've heard horror stories of them getting huge and aggressive for the community aquarium. You could most definitely keep a school of tetras then.

I would think a school of cardinal tetras would look amazing in a tank like that, however the smaller tetras may end up being food for your angels if they're hungry enough so if you go that route add 5 cards and see if they do okay then add however much you'd want
Oh and +1 to removing the CAEs, I hear horrible things too and I think they would be your best bet to rehome

 

[saltwaternewbie12]

yea they are about 6-8 inches long.....i was thinking about adding a school of 8-10 cardinals
...i always have a hard time keeping them alive though :-/

 

[Zimmanski]

With over breeding they have become less hardy than they were, an probably being so mall they're mor susceptible to illness so it's probably not your fault. Too improve your odds but from a trusted LFS and acclimate them properly, I've lost 5 out of the 11 I've bought, 3 didn't survive the stress a petco worker put them through catching them, 2 dropped randomly with no symptoms, and the rest I have a getting to a really nice size now. Float the bag, then slowly get the water in the bag to be 50-50 your water and the water they came in for best results

 

[Rivercats]

One suggestion is if you can add the cardinals before the angels it would be best. If you can't and the angels are a good size then get someone to help you and after the cardinals have been acclimated and are ready to put in have one person feed the angels lightly while the other adds the cardinals. This way the angels attention is more on the food not on the new smaller additions.

 

[Zimmanski]

One suggestion is if you can add the cardinals before the angels it would be best. If you can't and the angels are a good size then get someone to help you and after the cardinals have been acclimated and are ready to put in have one person feed the angels lightly while the other adds the cardinals. This way the angels attention is more on the food not on the new smaller additions.

This is a good suggestion when adding anything new to a tank with angels, my angels have never bothered my neons or cardinals though, but I'm probably just lucky