multiple schools of dartfish

treesprite

treesprite

Member
I'm hoping some of you can describe your experience with keeping at least two schools (minimum of 5 individuals per school) of separate dartfish species in one tank. I plan to put a couple schools into a 120g which is not currently set up. I don't need info on the general care of individual fish, nor even on a single school, but on multiple schools in a single tank.

I had a school of 7 firefish (Nemateleotris Magnifica) in my old tank without any in-fighting at all; the group was always together, hoovering together, turning the same direction together, swimming together... it was very cool. I think some people have experienced groups of this species to break up into a bunch of random individuals, but mine were always together.

I am considering any combination of two of the following: N. Magnifica, P. Evides, and/or P. Heteroptera (red firefish, scissortail dartfish, blue gudgeon). Would like to have 7 fish in each of the two schools.

If anyone has videos of tanks showing two different species' schools, I would love to see them.

Thanks.
 
I believe it could work so long as you're not mixing 2 species of firefish (for example). I once kept a school of 4 red firefish and a pair of helfrichi firefish together. The helfrichi firefish were added after the school and they ended up killing my red firefish :s
 
Firefish live together in groups in the wild, so under the right circumstances and with the right preparation, anyone could keep a group. I don't advise it in a tank under 100g, but mine was only a 75 very carefully aquascaped specifically for those fish (you have to break up as many lines of sight as possible, for when they start pairing up and in case aggression between individuals arises).

As a group, before a couple carpet surfed, plumbing surfed, and died in a tank crash with most everything else, the fish were together for about half a year. It is true that they were young, so I don't know what would have taken place as they started pairing up, but a couple of very interesting things happened. I had a pair of purple firefish at the same time as the group of reds, and a lone red in the sump which had to be removed from the display when I got the group. Well, first thing that happened, was that when one of the purples went missing (found on the floor), the reds adopted it and let it share their lair under their rock (as a pair, the purples had a place on the opposite side of the tank). It's especially interesting because the purple was much more mature, and purples are supposedly more aggressive and less social than reds. The second thing that happened, is that when there were 3 reds left, I took the more mature red from my sump and put it in the main tank, where the remaining groupembers took it in as if it had always been with them. Both of those social events lead me to believe that people really don't understand these fish as well as they think they do, and also make me think that the fish would have been fine well into the future had they not met their demises (next tank will not have even a single hole, because believe me, firefish will find it just to spite you for thinking you had them under human control).
 
Firefish don't school. They live in pr forming colonies. And understanding the nature of why they are colonial helps us to understand how their behavior translates in aquaria.

Their social behavior is motivated by predator protection and breeding opportunities.

First, fr predator protection, being in larger groups there is a smaller percentage that any one individual will be successfully hunted. But even in large groups there are ways to get an even greater statistical advantages versus others within the group. In many cases this has to do with being more centrally located within the colonu, or by having a better dart hole. The ways to ensure this is by developing and maintaining a hierarchy, where dominant individuals bully subordinates. This bullying is diffused greatly in the wild, where colonies range from the 100's to 1000's of individuals. Despite that diffusion, being a small fish and having many predators, there is a lot of turnover on the subordinates.

In aquaria however, there is very little predatory pressure, if any, and not nearly as many individuals to diffuse aggression. Breaking up sight lines helps, but bullying, mysterious disappearances, and jumping are all consequences.

The other reason they are social in the wild is to increase finding the most desirable mate for spawning. It is believed that firefish are born a specific gender, rather than being sequential hermaphrodites as many other reef fish are.

In aquaria, with nowhere near the amount of specimens per group, competition for a suitable mate is increased, causing greater aggression and general intolerance of consexuals, especially as they reach sexual maturity. Once a pr has formed, the aggression increases as the other individuals are seen as competition for resources. And without the motivation of maintaining a colony due to predators, aggression increases.

Ptereleotris are far more social with conspecifics and congenerics. The most social seem to be evides, zebra, and heteroptera. These species can be mixed and matched together and often share the same dart hole. They will also do well with prs or individuals of Nemateleotris species. P. hanae, grammica, and rubrostigma seem to be colonial as juveniles and pr forming as they mature.
 
eatbreakfast said:
Firefish don't school. They live in pr forming colonies. And understanding the nature of why they are colonial helps us to understand how their behavior translates in aquaria.

Their social behavior is motivated by predator protection and breeding opportunities.

First, fr predator protection, being in larger groups there is a smaller percentage that any one individual will be successfully hunted. But even in large groups there are ways to get an even greater statistical advantages versus others within the group. In many cases this has to do with being more centrally located within the colonu, or by having a better dart hole. The ways to ensure this is by developing and maintaining a hierarchy, where dominant individuals bully subordinates. This bullying is diffused greatly in the wild, where colonies range from the 100's to 1000's of individuals. Despite that diffusion, being a small fish and having many predators, there is a lot of turnover on the subordinates.

In aquaria however, there is very little predatory pressure, if any, and not nearly as many individuals to diffuse aggression. Breaking up sight lines helps, but bullying, mysterious disappearances, and jumping are all consequences.

The other reason they are social in the wild is to increase finding the most desirable mate for spawning. It is believed that firefish are born a specific gender, rather than being sequential hermaphrodites as many other reef fish are.

In aquaria, with nowhere near the amount of specimens per group, competition for a suitable mate is increased, causing greater aggression and general intolerance of consexuals, especially as they reach sexual maturity. Once a pr has formed, the aggression increases as the other individuals are seen as competition for resources. And without the motivation of maintaining a colony due to predators, aggression increases.

Ptereleotris are far more social with conspecifics and congenerics. The most social seem to be evides, zebra, and heteroptera. These species can be mixed and matched together and often share the same dart hole. They will also do well with prs or individuals of Nemateleotris species. P. hanae, grammica, and rubrostigma seem to be colonial as juveniles and pr forming as they mature.
Click to expand...

What he said. Bottom line, a group rarely works with firefish.
 
I have about 18 firefish in my tank. they all went in at the same time and now are in 4 different groups. i also put in 21 longspined cardinals at the same time and they all school and stay together
 
I had a purple firefish and a zebra barred dartfish. They never payed attention to one another, and I've never heard of dartfish fighting except for among firefish. I'd think having a group of firefish and a group of blue gudgeons or scissortails should be ok, though I've never had a group of either.
 
I've always wondered if the trick isn't similar to keeping freshwater african cichlids. Whenever I kept a couple cichlids in a tank they always killed each other. When I finally put about 20 or so in a 40 gallon tank, I kept them for years and never had a problem. The idea is that the aggression gets dispersed. The key though would be having enough places for them to retreat at night as filefish always sleep in the rocks during the evening.

FB
 
andy67 said:
I have about 18 firefish in my tank. they all went in at the same time and now are in 4 different groups. i also put in 21 longspined cardinals at the same time and they all school and stay together
Click to expand...

For how long?
 
I may stick to groups for evides (scissortail) and heteroptera (blue gudgeons), and pairs of magnifica(red firefish) and/or decora (purple firefish). I have had simultaneous pairs of the two types of firefish, and they were fine together. The firefish look so cool hanging in a group though, partly because they just look so cool to begin with. Just have to go around all the LFSs to find actual bonded pairs, which will be a big pain.
 
This is going off topic, but did you get those cardinals from an online vendor or a LFS?

I love those cardinals, and tried to have a school before, but I had ordered some from local guy and during the week he had them, half died. He ordered more and those all died, some while he had them and the rest a few days after I got them. He said those fish do poorly in shipping - if he had told me that to begin with, I would not have risked all those lives by ordering them.
 
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