Are Angel fish good top dwellers?

[neutrino]

I am currently thinning out my 100g south american stock and once complete will leave me with x3 sp.leucosticta, x4 juvi orangeheads and a larger male, a juvi green phantom plec, and a small shoal of lemon tetra.

Other than the tetra all the others are generally speaking bottom dwellers and I want something south american to fill out the upper part of the tank - are angel fish a good option?

For my money, angels complement geos nicely (I prefer wild angelfish) as do a number of other fish, including severums, some acara, etc. With a disc shaped fish like angelfish, you get a contrast in shape, movement, and body language, to your geos. (It kills me when people say the difference in body language is between Africans and new worlds, to the point fish from the two continents can't understand each other. That's not it at all if you observe them long enough. More peaceful, yes, but my OH tapajos are actually similar to peacocks in body language, resembling their behavior much more than they do discus, severums or angelfish.)

Are angels strictly top dwellers? Not ime, but geos are not strictly bottom dwellers either ime. But, similar to geos spending a lot their time oriented to mid water and bottom, angels spend a lot of their time oriented to mid water and top, if that makes sense. While geos will spend time sifting sand for food, angels will be looking for something at the surface. But with either type it's not like there's an invisible boundary they never cross.

 

[Mythic Figment]

I am currently thinning out my 100g south american stock and once complete will leave me with x3 sp.leucosticta, x4 juvi orangeheads and a larger male, a juvi green phantom plec, and a small shoal of lemon tetra.

Other than the tetra all the others are generally speaking bottom dwellers and I want something south american to fill out the upper part of the tank - are angel fish a good option?

A single festivum would stay in the mid-upper levels of the tank. Wouldn't recommend a group because they have high conspecifics and will dive bomb tankmates that don't stay on the bottom 24/7.

Angels will also be mid-top dwellers and a group of four would be a good addition to your tank.

The trick I have found to keeping fish in the upper reaches of the tank is to have some decor that also goes all the way to the top. If there is some "cover" available to them, they will be more comfortable going up high if they are a little skittish. When I first got I to angels, my decor never reached higher than half way up the tank and my angels stayed near the bottom. After months of frustration, someone recommended adding some really tall fake plants that went all the way to the top. Within minutes of adding the plants and stepping back, my angels were swimming just a few inches below the surface.

And as cool as a pink tail would be, I would never recommend them for tanks under 6'. They are darters and really need to have the space when they start zooming around the tank so they have room to stop before they smash themselves against the glass.


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[Pipe layer]

In a 120 gallon we had 5 altifrons, 5 WC scalare, school of corys and a school of 15-20 lemon tetras. The angels stayed in the middle almost exclusively. The tetras would go from top to middle pretty frequently. All in all, one of my favorite tanks.