stocking

ok, but that was a link to another forum. not somewhere scientific or marine biologically based.

they mentioned chromis school (as did i), scissortails & zebra goby's (not to far off from the firefish i mentioned), and anthias (which I mentioned too).

So I am still missing your point when you say fish dont school and then link to a place that says the same thing I did.

anywho back to keeping the thread on track. 1.0 one thing to take into consideration if it you want to go the firefish route it is pretty important to add them at the same time so reduce aggression as they can get hostile to later introductions of the same species.

 

anything marine biology based would not have anything related to aquariums, this is entirely true its very improbable that he will have any type of fish school in anything under like a 150 gallon tank. and even then they may only school for a little bit at a time. even in the wild fish dont stay in a school for long term.

 

IMHO, discussion about schooling fish is pointless in this thread because (1) the OPer desires a lower nutrient system, meaning he doesnt want to host the numbers of fish it would require for one to call it a "school" and (2) as already pointed out, if the fish would even school, the system would need to be much larger.

I think a more beneficial discussion would be about which fish behaviors he desires. Does he want very active fish that roam about the entire tank (tangs), fish that tend to reside in certain areas (gobies, blennies), fish that weave in and out of the rocks (wrasses), or social fish that swim in the open and draw other fish out of the rocks (chromis, anthias)? Obviously there are more types of fish that exhibit these behaviors, but hopefully this give the OP an idea that there are tons of fish out there to choose from. Personally, I would choose a yellow tang, wrasse of some sort, maybe one chromis and one anthias, and a goby/shrimp pair. Lots of activity, various shapes, sizes and color.

To bvb-eft-luva: I have three anthias that exhibit schooling behavior in my 90 most of the time. Guess I'm just lucky...

 

there is always an exception to the rule, i mean sometimes clowns will host a condy anemone you can never be sure. just the chances are against it.

 

Mine school too!

 

As bvb said, they study the ocean, not our tanks. If you didn't know most schools of fish in the ocean are around 100+ strong depending on the species.

If you READ either of the forums you would have noticed that chromis firefish, damsels and dartfish, will school, AS JUVENILES, as they mature they become aggresive towards each other. (aka not schooling).

Yes you are right on anthias schooling, i agree, said that in my post before.

Sorry that this had to go on, but i think that (mostly, as you were right about anthias)wrong information should NOT be spread around.

+1 to Sacul1573's post on the last part.

 

thank you!

 

NP, just remember the ocean is a big place... there's lots of options

 

yeah ...

 

I'm probably end up getting this 50 gallon with some filters light and whatever so I was going to make it a FOWLR and upgrade it to a reef tank. stocking list-
1 snowflake eel
2 tomato clownfish
sound good?