Schooling Fish

sps4mytank · Dec 4, 2009

So I am in the market for some fish that school together.

I want it to be like.....I go to check out my tank and the fish come up and say to me "Where are you from holmes....this is our territory"

Unfortunately, I do not know which fish would school (coral person).

Any suggestions?

just some info my tank is dual 120's side by side (one sps dominate) other (lps dominate) sharing same sump and refugium

thanks

jay

fishytyme · Dec 4, 2009

green cromis, longspine cardinal, and anthias are a few that should school.

akabryanhall · Dec 4, 2009

Hey Jay,
Getting fish to school in an aquarium is tricky. That behavior is a defense mechanism, so without keeping them in a constant state of panic....
That being said there are fish that should stay pretty close to each other because of social reasons, otherwise known as shoaling, these are typically the best at it.
Blue/Green reef chromis
Threadfin Cardinal Fish (Bangaii and pajama cardinals should stay close to eachother but just kind of hang there)
+1 on the anthias, but be careful which you get. They can be very difficult to take care of. Maybe get 5 or 6 female Bartletts or lyretail anthias. One will turn into the dominant male.

SDguy · Dec 4, 2009

Threadfin cardinals and certain anthias (like dipsar) are as close as you are gonna get.

akabryanhall · Dec 4, 2009

BTW, that sounds like a sick setup, do you have a build thread anywhere?

cherokee_dude · Dec 4, 2009

Threadfin Cardinals rock and are very cool looking to boot.

sps4mytank · Dec 4, 2009

i was thinking anthias as well. I kinda wanted to do the borbonius but didnt think they schooled together. I might do the disbar anthias as those look fairly nice

Paul_N · Dec 4, 2009

I thought chromis will eventually go after each other one by one and harass the weakest. I had 4 green chromis and now down to 1.

fishytyme · Dec 4, 2009

i have a group borbonius, they hang out tomorrow but dont really school. at least for me. the closest i got was with cardinals (cromis did it the best but they keep dying for me).

sps4mytank said:
i was thinking anthias as well. I kinda wanted to do the borbonius but didnt think they schooled together. I might do the disbar anthias as those look fairly nice

fishytyme · Dec 4, 2009

i have heard that if the group is large enough (like over 9) then it is less likely to happen.

Paul_PSU said:
I thought chromis will eventually go after each other one by one and harass the weakest. I had 4 green chromis and now down to 1.

moto826 · Dec 4, 2009

i have 3 that are all ways close to gather i love them swimming around my tank is 24 24 by 16 tall

Harry_Y · Dec 4, 2009

Paul_PSU said:
I thought chromis will eventually go after each other one by one and harass the weakest. I had 4 green chromis and now down to 1.

I started with 16 now down to 4

reefdan · Dec 4, 2009

banggais WILL NOT school unless your system is 300g+. if you get banggais in something smaller they'll just pair off and kill the remaining fish

bamastunter · Dec 4, 2009

fishytyme said:
green cromis, longspine cardinal, and anthias are a few that should school.

chromis have a way of weeding out the weakest one once they settle in I started with 7 now have three and they are starting to weed out one of the three so I will soon only have two

Paul_N · Dec 5, 2009

When I got down to 2 chromis, the one was only interested in swimming with the Anthias and would chase the other chromi into my green cap to hide. The other chromi could never come out to eat.

Ike · Dec 6, 2009

reefdan said:
banggais WILL NOT school unless your system is 300g+. if you get banggais in something smaller they'll just pair off and kill the remaining fish

They won't school in a large aquarium either... Techinally I don't think they even school in nature, they shoal.

fatcasey · Dec 6, 2009

Thread fin cardinals, I've seen em called blue eyed cardinals too cause they have wicked bright blue eyes under the right lights, are awesome fish. I've tried a few small groups before, but they slowly dwindle down in numbers too.

xrayrider · Dec 7, 2009

I have seen firetail Gobies hang out together. Neet fish. They do best in a group of 3. More and they get left out of the group and exiled to another part of the tank.

CoralBandit · Dec 7, 2009

Sorry I meant Lyretail Anthias are your best bet. They wont "Where are you from holmes....this is our territory" type of school though. They are more like "hey look were together... now were not" and the males usually randomly dart at females out of no where and scare everyone.