advice? Large schools vs. a few big fish vs. school w/ 1 big fish

[zachtos]

I have tried to keep Chromis, Anthias, Lyretail and Wrasses, all with failure. It was always same story, start with many... end up with few. They just always slowly died off one by one. I was keeping them with tangs in a 240G SPS tank.

What is the secret for the smaller schooling fish?

Otherwise, I was debating just a bunch of tangs (acan) and maybe 1 clown tang and/or large angelfish (emperor/regal) for the new 300G SPS reef.

Or maybe just a huge school of variety of chromis (50+) and 1 clown/sohal tang as king.

 

[ThRoewer]

...
What is the secret for the smaller schooling fish?
...

Predators, space and keeping them busy.

Without an external thread and the need to constantly hunt for food they have too much time on their hands and start bickering among each other.

If trying to build a group it is also best to start with the smallest possible individuals so that they can work out the hierarchy early on.

One of the fish I had long term success with are Grammas as they are relatively peaceful fish.

 

[RDtrack]

First let me give you congrats on your tank and the thread you have on WRS. I too love your back ground and I think it turned out awesome.

I agree with smaller fish falling off one by one over time in a large tank with larger fish. I think they just get overwhelmed, stressed, whatever.

Anthias - For the smaller species I don't think we truly feed them enough. Hence the reason the larger ones live longer. However then again it appears that the larger ones get stressed more often.

Chromis - In my opinion the more you have and the larger you have the longer they live.

Wrasses - It depends on what you have an they don't necessarily school. In addition you have to be careful how you add and what you add as they are all territorial.

Since you are doing SPS I'd be worried about adding species such as pyramid butterflies (that are hardy and do good in a group) or dwarf angels.

Instead of the chromis you could do a bunch of damsels and the sohal or clown tang. I've had better luck with damsels than chromis. For the damsels I'm not sure if I would do all the same type or different ones. With the only requirement that they say small and colorful. It would look kind of cool as damsels like to live in and out of SPS. Also if you did different ones it would allow you to add different ones at different times, satisfy that fish urge

Or as was already suggested a grouping of grammas (royal) would look cool. Could also do these with the damsels. Damsels in my mind get a bad wrap. They are a tough hardy fish and if you add the correct type you don't get a big ugly fish.

Good luck and as I said before a beautiful build.

 

[ThRoewer]

The Starcki damsels I have are not very aggressive - not for lack of trying, it's just that hardly any of my other fish takes them serious.
They are also not vicious like some of the more nasty damsels. They usually chase only until the other fish runs and hides - unless you have two starcki males.

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