Hi everyone, I'm finally on my way to a bigger tank and one thing I've always wanted was a proper school of fish.
Info:
I have a 200 gallon aquarium I ordered during black Friday and am looking for a school of fish. The stocking will be medium overall with two or three tangs as the only large fish.
My question is who has a good suggestion and do they school together or shoal?
Chromis seem to swim together, but people say they pick each other off over time and deal with uronema. Do they actually school and is there a perfect number? Also do green vs blue green make a difference, liveaquaria lists blue green as shoaling fish which I understand means they just swim together.
People mention evansi anthias or springeri as well.
It’s honestly impossible to find schooling fish in this hobby. They will shoal but it’s rare you will get true schooling fish.
Schooling is used as a deterrent towards predators to make themselves larger and ‘scary’. However, in the hobby we generally can’t have these predators that cause these fish to go into schooling modes so your best bet is with shoaling fish.
Now, Chromis and Anthias are good recommendations however people often lose them as they kill eachother off because there are no larger fish constantly being aggressive towards them. This is where damsels and other somewhat small but boisterous fish come in. Damsels (and even other species of Chromis) keep
Chromis viridis in groups. This is because they are being boisterous and keeping the Chromis in their place, making them want to group up more and overall shoal.
I hadn't even thought of wrasses schooling. I was planning on one Mccosker wrasse since I think they are really pretty.
Another fish I was curious about was maybe tilefish. Anyone do a school of those, or do fire fish school if you have enough?
I disagree with the comment of wrasses. First off, wrasses live in harems which is slightly different to schools or shoals. Then, in captivity you have that fact that flasher and fairy wrasses will always transition to male and eventually fight to the death to be the most dominant male. This is different to if you have different species of flashers in the same tank as they don’t see eachother as the same fish and instead see eachother as wanting to hold the most territory. So they defend their own territory and generally won’t chase the other around the tank for long periods of time.
Tilefish are 50/50. Some will group however they’re best kept in 2-3s if you want a group other wise, keep them singularly (obviously you can have different species but I’d stick to 1-2 of the same species). another issue with tilefish is they are much more jumpy than any other fish I’ve had - I have/had wrasses, dragonets, gobies, tilefish, rabbitfish. All are somewhat known jumpers however the tilefish were the worse until they were settled in and they need crevices and overhangs to be happy.
