understanding schooling fish...

[Sk8r]

Many newbies include in their vision the notion of clouds of little fishes wafting through their tank.

There's a scale problem here, pardon very bad pun. The 'schooling behavior' happens for a small handful of reasons.
1. terror. when threatened, some fishes will band together and rush away in the hope the predator will eat the hindmost.
2. traveling feeding groups...this operates in tanks about the size of the Atlanta aquarium, but not in your average home rig: groups of feeding fish travel together where the favorite food is, and stragglers scurry to keep up: the whole thing has no leader that I can figure, and operates more like a ouiji board: one moves, all move. all move, one moves.

Very very few fish travel together in a tank: they learn they're safe, and they don't school any more. The only ones I've seen do it even moderately are blue-green chromis, who will eliminate their own weakest member until they like the number they are...and anthias, which need quite a long run to be healthy, 5-6 feet or so. Well, and then there are the cardinals, who hang in midwater together.

If anybody has had success with any others, or has any other observations, chime in.

 

[kau_cinta_ku]

very nicely put. and I would add:

do not add in a mean fish just to try to make them school. that is just mean and does more harm than you think.

 

[HumbleLobster]

Another good point is to talk about we don't necessarily see a school of fish so much as a shoal. From what I understand (and I'm too lazy to google at the moment) schooling involves a group acting as one individual element. Example: Finding Nemo when the large group of fish are talking to Dory and Marlin and they form up into different shapes. No one individual fish is leading all of that, its a group of them acting as one.

A shoal is more of a small group of fish that will move together on occassion such as in the situations that sk8r described. For me its more of a technical difference, but a difference all the same.

If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. If there is one thing I like, its learning something new.

 

[Sk8r]

Now that's interesting. I've wondered myself what the difference is.

 

[snorvich]

No, you understand schooling and shoaling quite well. We can get shoaling behavior in our tanks, an example would be cardinal fish, but schooling in hobby sized tanks is simply not going to happen even if dithering behavior exists. Anthias don't really school, they shoal. The only aquarium sized fish that I know actually schools is glassy sweepers.

 

[JRechcygl]

There are not many "true" schooling fish. I believe tuna is one, I heard once silversides are but I have doubts, I also heard a kind of jack are schoolers.

 

[twoodall]

The two words are really closely related as they apply to fish or people. They both speak to common interests, behaviors, and attitudes (feeding habits or habitat). School seems to apply more loosely as to interests or behaviors, where shoal applies more toward the closer physical grouping of fish or people due to pressures, excitement, passions, and/or threats.

Examples of schooling would be a college campus for people like minded in arts or literature. Fish would be a particular structure in a water column that fish suspended around for feeding opportunities or socializing (for lack of a better term).

Examples of shoaling for people would be waiting all night for some concert ticket to go on sale perhaps. Fish would be the abundance of food or prey causing tight knit grouping.

Either way, you are correct in stating that it rarely happens in our 10g-200g cubicle environments. You possibly could consider 2 or more fish from the same species to be schooled in the home aquarium environment.

 

[che25]

I've often wondered about schooling fish.

Here is my question:

When a school of fish turns, how do they do so? Do they follow the leader; or do so all at once in unison?

Now that would be fun to explain with mathematics!

 

[laud]

I would imagine it is the saying, "like chords resonate". Have you ever opened the pedals on a piano and hit any C? All the other Cs vibrate together.

However, I am only an imaginary engineer. LOL

 

[twoodall]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13015762#post13015762 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by laud
I would imagine it is the saying, "like chords resonate". Have you ever opened the pedals on a piano and hit any C? All the other Cs vibrate together.

However, I am only an imaginary engineer. LOL

Staying at the Holiday inn express again tonight?
:rollface:

 

[snorvich]

So what is wrong with the Holiday Inn Express? Been there, done that, will be forced to do it again.:bounce1: