Empress
Valuable Member
In nature, many species of fish shoal or form schools, but what is the difference between shoaling fish and schooling fish?
Any group of fish that are swimming closely together and follows a general direction are said to be shoaling.
Although shoaling fish are common in wild, but in an aquarium environment, shoaling fish may just stop shoaling. This is usually due to the lack of predatory and abundance of food. In such safe environment, a chromis for example, will swim off by itself doing its own thing since it know there are no natural predators around. But when they are threatened, shoaling behaviors will come back again. (Please do not try frightening the fish by knocking the glass to bring back shoaling behaviors, you will stress up the fish at the same time).
On the other hand, schooling fish will not only swim closely together, they will form a very tight formation and will swim in a much synchronized manner (they will all swim in the same direction). The schools can perform very complicated maneuvers such as changing of directions and turning as a whole. Schooling fish are commonly found in the marine habitat. The primary advantage of forming such tight schools and swimming in coordinated manner is to minimize the chances of being eaten by larger fish. The synchronized swimming performance also helps to confuse the predators.
Any group of fish that are swimming closely together and follows a general direction are said to be shoaling.
Although shoaling fish are common in wild, but in an aquarium environment, shoaling fish may just stop shoaling. This is usually due to the lack of predatory and abundance of food. In such safe environment, a chromis for example, will swim off by itself doing its own thing since it know there are no natural predators around. But when they are threatened, shoaling behaviors will come back again. (Please do not try frightening the fish by knocking the glass to bring back shoaling behaviors, you will stress up the fish at the same time).
On the other hand, schooling fish will not only swim closely together, they will form a very tight formation and will swim in a much synchronized manner (they will all swim in the same direction). The schools can perform very complicated maneuvers such as changing of directions and turning as a whole. Schooling fish are commonly found in the marine habitat. The primary advantage of forming such tight schools and swimming in coordinated manner is to minimize the chances of being eaten by larger fish. The synchronized swimming performance also helps to confuse the predators.
