Angelfish Biotope

A

Arya

Registered Member
Dec 8, 2012
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Hey everyone,

I am in now way new to fish keeping, I've had planted aquariums, saltwater aquariums, cichlids, discus, as well as various freshwater tanks previously.

I happened to be given a custom 50 gallon tall tank and I just love it. It's my ideal angelfish biotope. While the tank still needs to be resealed (which I'm TERRIBLE at), I have a tall piece of driftwood in the tank and will be using a sand substrate with a few rocks as well. There will be plenty of swimming room.

Now here's the problem, because the tank is plenty tall, I cannot deal with an actual lighting situation (although I do understand that plants don't grow where angelfish live) at the moment, but I do have some very light LCD lights that I was planning on using.

One thing that really bothers me though is a tank without plants. I was thinking of planting anubias on the crooks of the driftwood, but would this be drifting too far away from the biotope?

I do plan on having some floating plants, and I have no decided how many angels I'll keep yet, or their tank mates so any feedback would be appreciated. My boyfriend really has his heart set on Cardinal Tetras and I told him that they were not the best idea, although I also love the idea of tetras and cories.

As I said, any help or feedback would be appreciated.
 
That will probably work, and could look very nice, but you're putting Asian plants in with your SA fish. A nice tank, perhaps, but a biotope? Nope!
 
With my tank, I have anubias, vallis and amazon swords amongst others that I can't name. There are loads of threads about plants for these kinds of tanks on the Internet.


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you could do , sand, rocks driftwood and leaf litter..they are often in blackwater biotopes..maybe some sort of val
 
I do know that anubias are asian plants. I'm having a hard time coping with the idea of having a plant-less tank. I have looked into the plants that naturally grow in the area and I'm just not interested in them ascetically. Additionally, I would have lighting problems because my tank is a 50 gallon tall. Another reason I wanted plants is because they help with water quality, but I'm not going down the road of CO2 or the likes at this time. Plus, angel fish like subdued lighting, and I would not be able to provide that if I actually planted the tank with basically anything more than java ferns and anubias.

I decided last night that I am going to go plant-less. It's important to me that this is a biotope, and my boyfriend agrees, so we are going to stick with sand, the wood I have already and probably some rocks. I really don't like the way tanks look that are covered with dead leaves at the bottom - as much as I want a biotope, it's important that the tank be very pleasing to the eye.

My boyfriend wants a school of cardinal tetras and I think they would be beautiful and add color to the tank, however, I know they can be eaten by the angelfish and are fragile. I know I am a capable aquarist but my boyfriend is not and I'm not sure he would be able to deal with the issues that cardinal tetras can dish out. Any suggestions on another colorful tetra that we could use to stock the tank? We are planning on some cories of course, a pleco, angels and tetras. That's about it.

Anymore thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. I'll post a journal once I reseal the tank.
 
I am guessing you are going P. Scalare for Angelfish?

here's some reading for you with links with pictures

http://fish.mongabay.com/biotope_amazon_blackwater.htm

you'll find you don't have to go low light and the planted tanks can look nice if laid out with some thought .

Good luck and have fun
 
I've always found cardinals to be hardy, much better than pond raised neon tetras. When they were first imported, they were fragile, but since then the importing techniques have improved to the point that I recommend cardinals before neons.
 
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