Rebuilding and Restocking

The Anubias and bba is not unexpected. This plant is a slow grower, and thus needs shade. Floating plants usually provide this. BBA is often found on Anubias, like Java Fern too, because the overhead light is too bright.

Slaphppy7 said:

The otos are a social fish that do better in larger groups; same for the angel, hence the "angriness"...

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5 males maybe - throw a female into the mix and you get a pair and the others won't be happy. keyholes can handle both soft and hard water again recommended you start in a group and whittle down to 2 if a pair forms. The trick has to do with the sexes. I've played with all sorts of combos in my 120 (which is heavily planted - see attached picture); it really doens't work well unless the tank has a lot of areas once the sexes start mixing. Also i'm not sure keeping festums with angles is that great (they do co-exist in the wild); they are a much 'stronger' fish. My 450 and 550 will be here soon and then I'll be able to split them up but also see if i can get some decent behavior with mix sex angels in a much larger aquarium. Might report back in a couple of years - with a 10 foot tank they should have enough room for the breeding pair to totally sep from the 'heard' as they say.


Never heard of serape being territorial - i've had as few as 3 and as many as 20 (not same group); in both cases they avoided the angels and spent most of the day chasing each other but nothing else - btw festum will eat serape so if you want to get rid of them just get some festums.

Anyway a bit of an outdated picture of my 120 - it has gotten a lot denser but otherwise pretty much the same:

Byron said:

The filter dying should not have caused fish deaths, given the tank volume and fish numbers, especially as you have plants. As for the bba, seeing this suddenly appear after a weekend is not too likely, it was already there somewhere and spread. This algae is caused by an imbalance in the light/nutrients. Did you leave the light on, or was it on a timer, or off?

Re the otos, after five years I would not add more here. Leave well enough alone in this case. It is one of the exceptions to larger shoals.

Re the angelfish, just keep an eye on it. I definitely would not add more, this is not going to end well if what you describe in its behaviour is the case.

The other species in your list in post #6 are fine, numbers and species here. The diamond tetra might nip at the angelfish, or might not. A group of 15 could well avoid this, just be sure they are all added together at the same time.

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I agree. I've had a couple of power blackouts that have lasted 3 to 4 days, to wake up one morning with all filters running (power back up) without issues. As far as the Angels also from my experience, is a toss of the dice. They are cichlids after all and behave pretty much like it, some can be downright "nasty" though it is beautiful to have a tank with a few, it might not always work out.