Schooling fish
 

I'm at the point where the last fish I want in my tank are some sort of schooling fish. I know that the blue/green chromis are an obvious choice and I'm highly considering them.

Are there any ideas out there on schooling fish.

I know that Anthias are a schooling family but they are required to be fed several times a day and I only feed once a day so I think they are out of the question. Although they are very colourful. I've also heard that Anthias eventually die off one by one and don't tend to last too long.

Is there anybody with experience of some hardy schooling fish that look nice?

Thanks so much.

Or are there certain species of Anthias that don't required to be fed several times a day that are hardy?

Thanks so much.

http://www.themarinecenter.com/fish/gobies/bargoby/
bared zebra gobys tend to school most of the time, they can be jumpers though, i know i like looking at them alot more than the cromis

Wow, that is a nice fish. I'll have to maybe consider that and get my lfs to order a bunch of them if I settle on them. I've seen them at fish stores before but usually there's only one or 2. Thanks for the tip.

sea bass are amazing

I won't tell my anthias(bartletts)that they are suppose to eat more than once a day...:biggrin:

How long have you had the anthias and how many do you have in what sized tank? Do they show themselves lots as I heard they can be quite shy. Thanks so much. My tank is a 150 gallon.

If you want to be technical, we can never really do a school of any kind of fish in our aquariums.....we add six chromis and think we have a "school" when in the wild these fish school together in numbers we can only dream of keeping....what we do is add "groups" of these fish and slowly watch one fish in the group become dominant and pick on the weaker fish.....I would also recommend anthias of some sort if you want to try a group of fish.... my four bartlets stay together most of the time... two of them are bolder than the other two and spend most of the time out in the open...the other two stay in the rock work most of the time.....bartlets are hardier and stay smaller than most anthias which also a plus....

I would not recommend any anthias. Like was posted, they. like green chromis, do well for a while and drop off one by one.

I would recommend flasher wrasse. Choose the species you like. You will need one male an 5 females.
You will have to order them in as females are not normally caught.

Do not think of buying them unless your tank is covered though.

I second the choice for the bar/zebra gobies, and you could mix in some scissortails with them. Both choices are jumpers though. Chalk bass will also form small groups. Generally I just tell people to give up on the idea of schooling stuff, its just not practical. You can also look into the mini dartfish, they max at about 1 inch. A. megastigma and T. collini, i think are the names, common name is something like tiny dartfish.

I heard glass cardinal fish school together, could be an option.

What about threadfin cardinals? I thought they were the "en vogue" schooling fish of the day (ie. no issues with hardiness like anthias, jumping like wrasses, or turning on each other like chromis). ? (I could be wrong but I thought I read that's what people look for these days when they want a "schooling" fish..)

They look a little like tetras to me, but if they are a true schooling fish then you can overlook that a little, IMO. :) (Well, I happen to LIKE tetras, so maybe it's a bonus..)

Apogon leptacanthus

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/mari...rdinalfish.php

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/cardinal.htm

Other possibilities include other cardinals, like pajama cardinals, I think I've heard they can school. (Sphaeramia nematoptera)

HTH

you could do a school of like 20 A.megastigma as they stay really small and dont eat much, the only problem would be if the larger fish picked on them, and also that their mouths are too small for mysis shrimp.

a school of Apogon cyanosoma would be really nice, and they usually stay in a tight group.

i have four in a 72 gallon(anthias)

Glass cardinals would be a good choice because they are availble captive bred from ORA, not exspenive and I think they are a tight shoaler and peaceful. But they could eat anything that fits in their mouth, such as small gobies.
http://glassbox-design.com/wp-conten.../03/cpfarm.jpg
Not my picture

hmm way to many anthias for a 72 gal, should only have 2 in there max..

Anthias are one the of fish that the LFS never wants to tell you the truth about as they are pretty and they can make lots of money off them.. in reality there space requirements are larger than tangs. but it is the shape of the tank that is more exacting, they should be in a tank that is at least 3' deep and preferably deeper.

Steve

what i've noticed about "schooling fish" over the years is that they tend to drift out of the school after a while. Schooling is a defensive mechanism. Safety in numbers. It makes them feel secure. Whenever I have put schools in (chromis, anthias, cardinals, etc), they school for up to a few months but after that they start to feel comfortable and come to realize that there aren't really any predators in the tank. It starts with one of the fish breaking rank and swimming on its own, then another one and the next thing I know they are all over the place and only come together as a school on rare occasions. I suppose in that case they are still schooling, but for the most part I just end up with a bunch of the same fish swimming all over the place. Maybe I just never had enough critical mass of fish for them to stay in the school. Maybe this is just in my tanks but that's been my experience :-)

Anyway, my favourite schooling fish are the barletts or queen anthias. I used to have a school of 6 pajama cardinals but my wife said they look like Gollum wearing pajamas so i sold them (save for one). They did school for the short while that I had them.