Angelfish and schooling fish?

[NattyGains]

So I've recently finished cycling my first fish tank ever. I've stocked it with about 20 Neon Tetras and a couple of Rasboras. Looks nice and the fish seemed happy.

About 10 days ago, against my best judgement, I bought a pair of Angelfish. The store owner kept pushing that "nothing will happen" and that "he keeps them with Neons all the time". He pushed it for a good 10 minutes, eventually I caved in because I figured that this guy knows way more than me; I'm very new to the hobby.

Anyway, over the course of the last 10 days, I've been noticing the number of my Neons drop. I figured some may be hiding because of the new fish, but turns out the big angel is straight up eating them. I woke up this morning to just one lonely tetra left, he's managed to cull 19 of them in just a few days.

So yeah, rant over, but at least I learned a valuable lesson about trusting pet stores on anything.

I don't want to throw the Angelfish away, but Neons are clearly not an option anymore. Does anyone have any tips for vibrant, schooling fish that hang near the middle and that my Angels won't try to eat? Tank is 55 gallons, has decent filtration and is heavily planted.

 

[Tifftastic]

Black neons are a bit bigger and fairly colorful (black with an orange stripe). There are also rummy nose tetras that are a little bigger. There's also cherry barbs. There are a lot more options than that, those are just my favorites. You could also look into dwarf neon rainbows.

 

[NattyGains]

Thanks for the tips! Cherry barbs look very pretty. I'll definitely try to get my hands on a few if my local stores have them

 

[FreshyFresh]

These were adult angels I assume? If it can fit in it's mouth, it's a potential meal. Some angels could care less.

 

[NattyGains]

These were adult angels I assume? If it can fit in it's mouth, it's a potential meal. Some angels could care less.

Fairly young, but not extremely small. The larger one is around 2 inches tall, 3.5 inches with fins. I'd understand if he snipped one once every couple of days, but they've plowed through 20 of them in a week...

 

[FreshyFresh]

Were the neons very small? Reason I ask is, the mouths on young angel fish are quite small yet.

 

[NattyGains]

Sort of! Honestly, at a first glance the neons seem too big to fit into it's mouth. I only saw him eat one - and he only managed to fit half of it. He spit it without managing to swallow it after about 20 minutes. Not sure if he did this with all the other fish too. The poor neon was chomped up by the other fish in about 10 minutes, so it's possible he's just killing them, and the other fish are eating them? I'm not sure.

 

[fishorama]

Yeah, hunting is what angels do even if they can't swallow them, they'll try. Higher bodied tetras (lemons, phantoms, NOT serpaes or tiger barbs!) or harlequin rasboras are much less likely to be killed.

What size is your tank?

 

[NattyGains]

About 55 gallons. It's square so there's a lot of vertical swimming space...

 

[tanker]

I have Neons with Angels, but I started with small angels and big neons. Over the years the Neons eventually died of old age, but now my Angels are too big to add Neons.