How many angels for a 45G?

[Hamburglar]

Hi everybody,

I have a question about stocking a 45G tank that has been up and running for 3~ years. Currently, the tank has a 9 inch pleco, 8 cardinal tetras, 2 danios, and one dwarf two spot gourami.


I was looking at angels from my LFS (which are about the size of a quarter.) About how many do you think I could add? The store had them marked as "peaceful" and "community fish" but I've heard they might eat small fish (like tetras) when they grow up.

 

[Rivercats]

Angels have gotten a bad rap and are not the monsters many have made them out to be. Yes on occassion you will get an adult that gets aggressive and can cause issues but in the 30+ years I've kept them I've noticed that those fish have always tended to be my really large aggressive males. In your 45g with your stock you would could do 3. Then if 2 pair off later as they mature, which can be from 8 months on, you can rehome the odd angel. Plus by adding the angels last in your tank they will acclimate to the fish much better which means as they mature there is only a slim chance of having aggression towards the other fish. One thing to watch is that the gourami doesn't get aggressive with the angels when you add them in. If he does, you need to remove him to a container, rescape the tank, then readd him. This makes the gourami think he's in a new tank and that he has no established territory in.

 

[PolyptRus]

Hi everybody,

I have a question about stocking a 45G tank that has been up and running for 3~ years. Currently, the tank has a 9 inch pleco, 8 cardinal tetras, 2 danios, and one dwarf two spot gourami.

I was looking at angels from my LFS (which are about the size of a quarter.) About how many do you think I could add? The store had them marked as "peaceful" and "community fish" but I've heard they might eat small fish (like tetras) when they grow up.

I had two medium angelfish in a 40 gal tank with some swordtails, loaches, and gourami an a few others. They were fine until they outgrew the tank so my only suggestion would be you can do two however you may need to upgrade depending how big they get.

 

[Chris7495]

Like rivercats said, just get three and if they pair exchange or give the odd one away. It's really your only option as a 45 gallon cannot hold 6+ full size adults which is how many you need to spread the aggression out in a school. I tried 4 when I first started keeping angels and it was a real bad idea, the big male killed off 2 others due to mating.