schooling fish suggestions?

tapar

tapar

New member
Howdy,

I am in the planning process, trying to choose what creatures I want to have in my 120g reef tank. It is proving more challenging than I expected, most of the fish/inverts I am attracted to most are incompatible. I am taking an approach of defining a large list of fish, clams, crabs, shrimp, coral, softies, ect that I like and then trying to eliminate the obvious conflicts...for example clams and everything that eats them. :)

I am interested in the idea of a small group of schooling fish for the tank. I have seen some groups of chromies swimming together in a tank and thought that looked pretty cool. I was wondering what other fish might be good for that? I was thinking perhaps a male Anthias and some females, but I don't know much about them yet. I would swear I saw what looked like a school of purple dottyback's somewhere, but I don't think that was actually the case.

I will have to do some research on bioload too so I can see what I can fit in a 120g tank without stressing everything, that might preclude schooling fish. I would still love some suggestions/ideas along those lines though.

Thanks!
 
Anthias are most common next to chromis, they can bring more color and personality to the tank. They are your best bet.
 
I have 3 Spotted (pajama) Cardinalfish that supposedly school, but mine never do. They all three pretty much go their separate ways.
 
I have also read that anthias are good schoolers. I only have a 55g so I'm afraid I can't keep enough to make a school. I think green chromis are my best bet.
 
What is really weird is my 6" clown trigger and my 3" huma huma trigger are always swinnng together. Guess they are just buddies. Neither like the copper banded butterfly fish. Fish are really strange you may never know. But The above is correct the Anthias seem to be good schoolers.
 
i dont think a school of fish is possible in a sw tank, you will have fight after fight untill a small amount remain, id go with freshwater if you want a large school of fish
 
I thought schooling fish would be really cool, until I watched some videos of the recommendations above on youtube. I didn't see much schooling, which is probably because an aquarium just doesn't create an enviroment that makes fish want to school. Just a thought.
 
I have 3 pajama cardinals that school. Had to make a choice between the pj's and the black/white cardinals, which were schooling on the lfs large tank too
 
It does seem like getting a school going in a 120g tank is asking alot. It seems like you would need lots of little tiny fish and having them not turn into fish food seems unlikely. :) Anthias are cool fish so they might end up in the tank anyway, but the number of fish involved would depend on how many fish can comfortably fit in the tank.

I did look at cardinal's a bit, they don't seem to swim much. In all the youtube flicks and whatnot they seem more like they are hovering/floating like little ornaments. I don't dislike them but I am not particularly drawn to them either.

I do appreciate the input, I am going semi-nuts trying to nail down what I want. I will use the list to figure out what I need for equipment and food so I can evaluate the daily, weeky, monthly, ect workload for maintenance. I want to cut up as much as possible in the planning phase so I don't end up with more than I can chew. lol. Thanks again!
 
The only tank I have seen "schooling" in was a 500g. I have 2 chromis in my 55 that hang out together, but the bigger one still chases the smaller one off every so often. Think of the school as a large fish. In order to keep it, you must have a large enough tank to allow the school to thrive. A smaller (120g) tank would not allow a very large fish to manuver or thrive, so the smaller fish rarely school.
 
I just bought 6 chromis for my 240 gallon tank. They were shipped together, walked into the pet store as they arrived so never went into the tanks at the store. After acclimating them I caught 3 with the net out of the bag and put them in, then the next scoop with the net i got 2, now when i put the 3 in they swam one way and then when i put the 2 in they swam the other way and as soon as the 2 saw the 3 they darted right to them to get in a group. I then put the last one in and he swam into the rocks right away. The damsel i have in the tank was bull'n the 5 and the single chromis, which happen to be the biggest one saw the damsel chasing the other 5 and instantly swan over to the 5, about 2 ft away and went right in between the damsel and the 5 smaller chromis and blocked the damsel from going after them. It was awesome to watch it happen. They, all 6, swim around in a school together all the time. One might break away for 15 seconds but then gets right back up in the pack of them. Had them for about 3 weeks now. I think the main reason they are sticking together is cause they were all shipped together and then right into my tank still all together. It is very kool watching them travel around the tank in a school. Might order 6 more. My tank is also 8ft long so lots of room to swim back and forth. HTH, Thanks
 
In my experience, chromis eventually establish a pecking order, and the toughest one begins to pick off all the rest. Sometimes you end up with a pair, like cjk76 described, and like I currently have in my tank. Just like his, my dominant one often takes a swipe at the other. I would be interested to hear how rdogs little shoal plays out. I have heard one way to keep small fish shoaling is to keep them scared. The presence of predators is what keeps shoals grouped up naturally, so it stands to reason that if something is chasing them in your tank they will fall back on the natural shoaling behavior.
 
Floowid said:
The presence of predators is what keeps shoals grouped up naturally, so it stands to reason that if something is chasing them in your tank they will fall back on the natural shoaling behavior.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Unfortunately, the only fish that I've seen it work well with is the green chromis. And those guys will kill each other off eventually. I had a nice little "school" when I first started my tank. A year later I just had one lonely little chromis.
 
a group of Firefish will usually stay together and constantly hover in the middle water column. I have three in my 200 that always stay together. They are a nice contrast to the other fish that tend to hop around or constantly meander through the rockwork, plus they really are beautiful little fish in and of themselves.
 
seapug said:
a group of Firefish will usually stay together and constantly hover in the middle water column. I have three in my 200 that always stay together. They are a nice contrast to the other fish that tend to hop around or constantly meander through the rockwork, plus they really are beautiful little fish in and of themselves.
Click to expand...

Cardinals are like this too. Both are great fish. Just make sure you have a huge tank.
 
This is a bit on the semantic side of things, but since (imho) we should strive to understand the fish we put in our tanks, I think it is relatively important to understand the difference between schooling and shoaling.

Schooling denotes a group of fish swimming together in the same direction in a coordinated manner, often to confuse or intimidate predators. Unless you have a 10,000+ gallon tank with large groups of predators and prey-fish, you'll never see true "schooling" behavior in home aquaria.

A shoal of fish, however, is a group of fish that hang out together for social reasons, but are acting independently of one another. One may break off to nibble live rock. One may be swimming the other direction. One may be chasing a shoal-mate. This kind of behavior definitely does occur in home aquaria - particularly in larger tanks where we can house multiple specimens of the same species.

Since I'm new to keeping fish in home aquaria, it's hard for me to speculate as to the fish that have the greatest propensity to shoal...however, with about 2,200 hours spent scuba diving, occasionally as a member of research teams, it is my opinion that no reef fish in the wild shoal as prettily or as interestingly as anthias.

Just my $0.02....
 
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