I am looking for suggestions on some colorful reef safe schooling fish for my 125g. It is 5ft long and I currently have a pair of clowns, one spot foxface, coral beauty, mandarine and a small electric blue damsel that is currently in my 40g. I am waiting to move the damsel over to the 125g after I get all the other fish that I want to add. I am planning on adding a powder blue tang, a wrasse, a goby and another type of tang.
Colorful Reef safe schooling fish
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ca1ore
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Fish don't 'school' in our tanks, for a whole lot of reasons. Loose 'aggregation' is about the best you can hope for. Resplendent anthias is the best choice of the fish I have kept, particularly if you have a couple of other, larger fish.
eatbreakfast
Fish Nerd
Zebra dartfish work well.
eatbreakfast
Fish Nerd
But in the long term a school won't work, 2 will pr up and kill off the remaining ones, even in large tanks.I love me a nice banggai cardinal school
reef4beer
Well-Known Member
Nice to know, wasn't aware. Always had large schools at my old job at a LFS. Recently bought 2 and was about to buy a few more.
retiredsailor
Active Member
I've always wondered why that is, the "schooling" in the stores. Is it a confinement issue? Like in prison, people who normally wouldn't associate banding together?
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
Tried this 5+ times over 12 years in the hobby. This is NOT true - it's worse. Sometimes one fish will kill off the rest and you won't even have a pair!
Ok so it is basically true but instead of being left with two, 4/5 times I was left with one BIG mean Cardinal!
reef4beer
Well-Known Member
Good question, amazing the amount of fish you see together with no problem. Crazy that one batch of them will have no problem and the next batch does.
Back on topic, like all others said anthias are a great option just difficult at times to keep happy and well fed.
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
I still like chromis for their colors and relative ease of ownership. Anthias are often difficult for all but intermediate or expert hobbyists due to feeding and qt requirements.
Tabasco1
Valuable Member
....I know we are supposed to be back on topic...
From what I've read they will generally be ok in a school when they are not sexually mature. As soon as one (or more) matures, that is when the aggression begins. This would likely be the case for many fish you see in groups at a store that are not recommended to group long term. Most fish come in as juveniles.
... ok. back on topic.
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
I might add that while I keep many expert level fish (moorish idol, several leopard wrasses, Achilles tangs, regal angel, copperband butterfly, among others) I don't mess with anthias.
Truth be told though my addition is almost solely Angels tangs and wrasses. Recently my wrasse bug has been mission critical - I need a support group.
ca1ore
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No more problematic to QT than any other fish. Some species ARE a pain to feed, but many others are not. Big ones need space, but smaller do not. Resplendents are one of my faves, and pretty easy to keep. Can't seem to find them for sale at the moment though (I have five and would like at least five more).
Anthias are what I'd get. I've found Lyretails easy to keep even when feeding once a day. They get extremely fat in my system. The second option would be chromis. They've always died in quarantine for me though.
thanks I will am looking into the anthias. I did the blue-green chromis and after a couple of months they killed themselves off. started with 5 and ended up with one until he decided to jump out of the tank one night. one of our cats was walking around with it in her mouth like it was one of her toys.
The only thing with anthias is that I always would get a actual male. I had all females at one point and two turned into males at once. I ended up with both of them dead.
alex.mccann99
Active Member
So weird, always heard people say they started with 5 or so and they killed each other, I had 5 in my tank for about 2 years until I had to tear it down and move. Sure they fought a little, but nothing to the death.
