How many fish?

I have just set up my only tank with a view to keeping a selection of Angels in it. I currently have 3 x 2 inch long Angels, 3 x 1.5 inch Corydoras and about 8 x 1 inch Platys.

My problem is that as I see more Angel varieties I want to keep more fish. I cannot make room for another tank so my question really is how big are my Angels gonna get in a 280 litre tank? And how many adults can it hold?
I am collecting another 6 x 2inch Angels at the weekend and have seen blues in my LFS and on here that I would love.
Is it okay to overstock now and reduce my numbers as the fish develop? Either by selling to my LFS or on here.
I am used to heavy stocking as I kept mbuna prior to this set up.

Any advice would be much appreciated.
Bob.

Hi Bob,
You're not the first to go down that route....
http://www.uk-angelfishforum.org.uk/t312-hi-everyone
with the extra 20 litres, you've room for one extra adult!
Personally, I find that angels are a bit like Mbuna, the more crowded they are, provided there's plenty of hiding places, the less they fight. As with Mbuna, a crowded tank, requires more care with feeding and more regular water changes.

Thanks for the quick reply.
So about a dozen adults. If I keep adding to my want list that is never going to be enough space in my tank.
I am assuming the fish I have now and am collecting at the weekend are all around half grown. If I limit myself to say 18 at this size will I get them growing to full coloration before I have to select those I want to keep?
On that note are there any particular foods which will help enhance the colours in my silver Angels with yellow heads and any blues I might get? My LFS has some quite intense blue angels a similar size to mine but are asking £15 each! Is that a reasonable price or are they not really that rare?
Sorry for so many questions but
Ast time I had angels in a tank you could easily get silver with black stripes and sometimes black all over!!!
That was about 45 years ago and I only had access to a very basic shop at that time.
Bob.

If I limit myself to say 18 at this size will I get them growing to full coloration before I have to select those I want to keep?

That should be fine, just thin them out as they start to look crowded.

On that note are there any particular foods which will help enhance the colours in my silver Angels with yellow heads and any blues I might get?

The yellow colouration is from stored carotine, so feeding a good quality colour enhancing food would help, as would other foods rich in carotine such as brine shrimp, and some vegetable matter eg algae wafers, but I, almost exclusively feed Tetramin flake, and the oranges seem to develop pretty well with that. The blue colouration is structural i.e. it is produced by the refraction of light within the skin, not as the result of a pigment, so diet is unlikely to make a big difference.

My LFS has some quite intense blue angels a similar size to mine but are asking £15 each! Is that a reasonable price or are they not really that rare?

As a retailer myself, I don't think it appropriate for me to comment on the value of fish I haven't seen. But the blue varieties are quite new and good quality specimens aren't that widely available. Whilst they're not rare, they are also slower growing than many varieties, which will increase the cost of production and that is reflected in the prices charged.

45 years ago, most of the varieties we have to day simply weren't available. Black was one of the first mutations, other than the wild type silvers, half-black, black lace, marble, blushing, zebra and ghost were about the only other varieties you could get.

Thanks for that explanation of the colour differences between reds and blues. Would a particular lighting set up enhance the blues? I only ask as my LFS is actually a branch of Maidenhead Aquatics at my local garden centre. There is no independent specialist local to me any more. They will no doubt be doing all they can to intensify colours for sale. I don't mind that but it would be usefull to know if I would need to improve or change in some way my lighting.
Bob.

Would a particular lighting set up enhance the blues?

I don't think the type of tubes makes much difference, but the way the light falls on them does. If you can position the tank so a small amount of day light falls on it, that helps, or if you have spot lights that you can position so the the fish catch the light, that can help too.
At the shop we have a Vision 450 set up as an angel community. Recently I took in, some of my bigger fish that I'm not likely to breed from in the near future, but am not yet ready to part with, and put them in this tank. I also took some others which were to be sold and put them in a tank in our quarantine room. At the same time, I also removed some from the 450 to make way for the newbies, and put them in the same quarantine tank. The quarantine tank is lit primarily by natural daylight coming through a polycarbonate room.
One of the lads said, "I really like some of those blue ones out in quarantine", when I investigated which ones, it turned out that it was the ones I had removed from the 450, and despite the fact that they'd been there for several months, it was only when he saw them in the daylight that they'd caught his eye"