Schooling Fish

[Salty Cracker]

Anyone have luck with small schooling fish in the reef tank? Curious what schools well

My recent experience with chromis is exactly like my previous experiences with chromis: start with several, end up with 1.

BUT I do like the schooling fish scene, wondering if there's anything that is chromis like-without the high mortality and nuke-the-system-with-hidden-dead-chromis-nutrients aspects. ?

 

[Shooter000]

3-4 fire fish may add some eye catch to the tank, maybe some purple scissors or just some plan reds?¿, black bar chromis will school together, when not hiding in the lps or sps

 

[AdInfinitum]

3-4 fire fish may add some eye catch to the tank, maybe some purple scissors or just some plan reds?¿, black bar chromis will school together, when not hiding in the lps or sps

Fire fish will do the same thing as the Chromis.....fish that shoal...ie hang together for social reasons, (schooling is technically when a large group forms a tight formation where each does exactly the same thing so th group moves as one...) do so to avoid predation mostly. If you have no predatory threat those social groups almost always revert to aggressive infighting for dominance, with the group constantly working to weed out the weakest. In aquaria shoaling groups usually do best if there is a larger more aggressive fish in the tank to run at them and chase them regularly. The group splits and scatters...the aggressor can never chase any one target enough to cause it serious stress and since the shoal has a common enemy threatening them the infighting usually disappears. Since any chasing within the group usually attracts the attention of the "predator" they tend not to do it.

 

[SamB]

A couple of years ago I tried keeping red spot cardinals (pic attached)
They have to be housed in a group of at least 8
Seen a couple of times a year at LFS but many die on the way over. Very delicate fish
Beautiful but need very regular feedings (live food preferably) and varying flow patterns. They max out at approx 1.25 inch so obviously can't be kept with predators.
Very challenging fish to keep and not worth the work in my opinion but definitely a shoalling species and a very impressive sight when in a large group.
Now my shoalling species of choice is the cardinal tetra and I have more than 60 in one of my FW tanks !

 

[Salty Cracker]

hmmmm. interesting.... food for thought guys, thanks.