Angels with kribs?

[ChicoRaton]

I recently purchased a 55 gallon tank and now that it's all cycled and cleared up...
(took about 24 hours-- I squeezed out my filter sponge from my established 10g next to the filter intake)...I'm going to start stocking it. Now, two of my favorite fish are angels and kribs. I planned on having a few angels as the "centerpiece" fish, with some other fish to fill in the empty space. Would it work out if I had a pair of kribs in with the angels? other fish I am considering adding: zebra danios(call me weird but I love these fish... $0.50 each is a nice bonus too;) ) cory's (school of 5 or so) a pleco, dwarf gouramis, some adult fancy guppies( I'm sure the angels would like some fry as a snack too :p

anyway as far as I know any of the above would get along with the angels, but I'm not so sure about the kribs. anyone know for sure?

Thanks,
Chico

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

i kept a pair of kribs with my angel in a 20 gallon. they were fine.

you jsut have to watch and make sure the kribs aren't attacking the angels when they start breeding. a 55 is plenty of room for them all to have thier own terretories though.

however, i'm not sure about the gouramies. angels and gouramies dont get along great, i think.

and your tank will need a week before it is cycled when adding bacteria from another tank.... and every day you should add fish food or ammonia to keep the bacteria alive.

however, if your adding danios anyways, i would reccommend adding the danios first to keep the cycle going (its kind of half fishless and half fishy cycling). the bacteria is there and the danios are just helping it mulitply to make the whole tank healthy for the more sensitive fish.

[ChicoRaton]

Well if tanks really need a week to be cycled when doing that, mine must be the exception;) ammonia and nitrites both dropped to 0 and nitrates began rising in just over a day. I bought the tank used and it came with 5, 4" african cichlids. africans aren't my thing though so I'm going to trade them at my not-so-L FS. In the mean time I'm holding them here in my 55 to keep it cycled. (I have to drive 2 hours to get to the one around here that is happy to pay for cichlids. Anyway, thanks for the advice on the gouramis. quite helpful. I'd never heard that before.

[bazil323]

Hmm, I've always heard (from reading here and other fishkeeping forums for the last year or so) that using old filter media called for adding a fish right away. That it instantly cycles the tank. Since there is such a difference between the sizes of the tanks, I would have added the same amount of fish as were in the 10g (or all of those fish if they were going in the larger tank anyway). Then I would have waited a few weeks testing every day or couple of days. Once everything has settled and is okay, then I would slowly start adding the rest of the stocking.

Anyway, yes kribs should be fine with angels. The angels will stay in the top/middle sections of the tank while the kribs stay mainly at the bottom. From what I've heard, and I've done a lot of research and asking about this for planning my 75g, angels and gouramis should be fine together. Give them lots of cover, especially floating plants for the gouramis.

Btw, what kind of pleco were you thinking of. Most get too big for a 55. I'd probably skip the pleco and just get cories for a 55g. Especially since you'll be having another bottom dweller (the kribs) that will be cometing for bottom space.

Oh, and I'd add the angel last so that your other fish (specifically the danios and guppies) get large enough to fend off the angel. I'd only get one angel for that size tank though.

Sorry if I'm overloading you. I had a lot of the same questions just a few months ago when I was planning my 55g, which actually got upgraded to a 75g due to finding a really great deal. I haven't gotten it set up yet, so I can't say for sure how all of them work together. I will say that my pair of young kribs (just got 'em last week) are doing fine with my 2 L387s and the diamond tetras. In another tank, my 5 krib fry that are about 1 inch each are also doing great with diamond tetras and various inverts, though they are trying to eat the cherry shrimp, lol. The shrimp are about the same size as they are.

[Fraya]

There are many dwarf plecos that don't get bigger than five inches that would be a great fit for a 55 gallon. Just be sure that you do your reasearch (planetcatfish is a good place to start) before you get one!