Marine "tetras"?

[Zante]

Not exactly marine tetras, but I got your attention while kind-of explaining what I'm looking for.

I have been in freshwater for a while and I'm an amazon biotope devotee. I have had shoaling tetras in every one of my tanks.

Now I'm also opening a reef tank, 5' long with a 2'x2' cross section (150 US gallons) and I'm looking for the closest marine equivalent.

I have so far found cardinals (banggai in particular), anthias and chromis, but from what I read they don't really shoal together, just hang tohether occasionally.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Maybe some species that is a bit more open water, but which will adapt to living closer to a reef?

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Cardinals - red spot, longspine, or orangelined.

These are your best chance but even most of these may not school together tightly (but then again, I never got tetras to school back in my FW days either).

 

[Zante]

Hmm... it looks like longspine cardinals are exactly what I was looking for

Thank you, much appreciated!

 

[Wolverine]

Those would definitely be better than banggai cardinals. Often small groups will pair off and start killing each other.

 

[Moort82]

The ghost cardinals would be my choice as well. Red spot are nice, small and good at staying together but they aren't as hardy.

 

[velvetelvis]

I haven't kept them, but I really like the looks of Apogon margaritophorus. Sustainable Aquatics has bred them. To me they look like pencilfish. I've thought about setting up a macroalgae tank with a little school of them.