need help to choose fish

[Martin in Holland]

I need some help to choose fish for my tank. My tank is 120mtr long and about 300liter, I already have some red noses and some cherry barbs but I would like a small group of a bit bigger fish (about 10 to 14cm)...I'd like calm relaxing yet fish with some color, although l am also thinking about Angel fish but I don't know how difficult they are to keep....I also thought about Boesemani rainbows but I hear they are not calm and swimming fast from left to right.....
Please give me some ideas

 

[Yo-han]

Gouramis? Especially the leeri are very calm and not aggresive

 

[Michael W]

I keep angelfish and they are easy but can get aggressive from time to time especially if they form breeding pairs, but I myself would hate to keep single angelfish because I strongly believe that they need to socialise as I see mine swim together almost all the time. This current set of angels I have are around 4 years old and still going strong.

As Yo-han commented gouramis are nice fish, I also happen to keep pearl gouramis and they are very peaceful and relaxing to watch. Especially if you have lots of floating plants they will love the subdued lighting and become less shy. Males will develop a lovely red breast once matured and in certain angles you will see lots of blue spots on their tails representing the pearls. I've read in a book of mine that Pearl Gouramis can develop a golden colour if kept in ponds too! Not that I would suggest it due to the weather in the UK and all. But its just a interesting bit of information.

Michael.

 

[Martin in Holland]

Gouramis? Especially the leeri are very calm and not aggresive

indeed...nice fish...but they come up to breath air and with my open tank in wintertime would they still be ok?....it gets down to 8 degrees Celsius

 

[Michael W]

Apparently cold air can damage their Labyrinth Organ could it be possible to put a cover on with holes for gas exchange just for the winter time, It would just be a thin sheet of plastic.

 

[Yo-han]

No they can use air if there is no oxygen in the water. As long as you keep oxygen high, no problem!

Angels are one of the easiest fish indeed but unless you buy adults, you need to feed them quite a lot to get nice large angels. This means 2-3x a week a large water change to remove organics or it will result in algae.

 

[Michael W]

Good comment about getting the angels small. This will keep future aggression to the minimum as they will get used to each other's presence. This will also make it easy to add other small angels in the same tank in the future. But I would suggest you to buy all the angels in one go if you go with this route. If in the future more angels were to be added try to make sure it is relatively smaller than the established group to avoid messing up the hierarchy which can cause aggression as they re-establish their territories and status.