Almost. Shoaling captive fish. At least that's what I consider my tetras. Never seen them swim together. Most times they are scattered about different parts of the tank, usually coming together right as light dims to almost out.
Inter-species Shoaling?
- Thread starter noobfish
- Start date
Bruce Leyland-Jones
Fish Aficionado
Shoaling and not schooling...and it's a bit out to suggest that they shoal 'out of desperation'.
Like I said, in the wild, large shoals of different species will intermingle with other shoals, making even bigger shoals, especially when predators are about. Schools will also intermingle.
Bruce Leyland-Jones
Fish Aficionado
Yup...I've seen that behaviour also.
Shoaling is handy for when I'm doing a head count, but, more often than not, there's always one of the group missing. I used to wonder if it was an unwell fish, or simply a Billy No-Mates, until I worked out that the fish missing from the group wasn't always the same one.
How many are they of the same species ?
To be clear, this was simply a question of whether anyone else had seen this particular behavior. If there is question or concern regarding the stock numbers, please re-read Post #1 for details as to how they got the way they did and future plans to rectify.
Apologies if this wasn't clear.
DoubleDutch
Fish Gatherer
Any undernumbered schoolingfish will try to get the same security out of their schoolbehaviour with other fish that look a bit alike (same sized).
Apparently shoaling fish do the same. Just glad I wasn't imagining it.
DoubleDutch
Fish Gatherer
I meand shoaling fish hahaha.
D
Deleted member 149562
Guest
Due to a variety of reasons, main one being extremely randy fish, my aquariums have a very diverse populations. I should really get a 6th aquarium but my flat is too small. As a result my aquariums have a right old mix of fish and they all get along just fine....OK we get the occasional squabble but that is the same with any diverse community (any species including human). Many times during the day all the aquarium populations have a bad case of the zoomies together, they don't care about whether they are of the same species, one starts going nuts and the rest just follow along behind. There are some odd "friendships" such as one of my Ram's snuggles up to a Cardinal every night, no annimosity, just always swimming, feeding and dozing together. My aquariums have been this way for years and years without any issues....and the groups will happily "take in" a lone fish and make it feel secure and at home.
I wish mine would swim together, much more interesting to watch. Instead they are scattered about, doing their own thing. Only times they are near each other is feeding and sometimes, right at lights out, they will congregate under the amazon sword.
Actually, now that I think about it, they all get together one other time... when I water change. Every fish huddles around the pictus cat. I guess since he's the largest they all look to him for protection. It's quite comical.
This behavior often happens - for reasons touched above - because people too often buy fishes without taking in account school/shoal behavior.
In your case it happens because of 5 DT deaths leaving the last two DT lost. They gathered with BDT (also tetra, also schooling behavior, also south-american, also soft-acidic fishes) because it is the BPTs that have the most in common with the TDs.
That is why it is much better for schooling fishes wellfare to live in one large group of the same species rather than several "mini groups" of different species.
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