Schooling Or Single

[Durbkat]

I don't think any shelf even if you attach the support beams on the studs it wouldn't be strong enough to hold a 300 pound tank.

 

[JasonPlus]

Maybe I should have said bookcase to eliminate any confusion. I'm going to build it specifically to hold a tank, the books being more or less secondary. After I draw an intial design I'm going to bring it to my school's woods teacher for approval and comments. I'll likely end up going a little overboard as to its weight limit, but I always like to be safe rather than sorry.

 

[_Cal_]

Depends for me, I love cichlids, and have kept them alone, but I would take a school of clown loaches over anything, ofcourse including the tank to keep them in.

 

[Mr.September15]

Well I really like schooling fish only if there small ones like tetras,corys, etc. But then I also like single fish only if there big. I havent kept any but I always wanted one.

-Arrowhead

 

[Fishy412]

i like bigger single fish. they have more personality

 

[Synirr]

I'm more interested in the individual fish as pets, so of course I like single specimens or mated pairs. I think people who like schoaling fish are more interested in the overall look of the tank, because a large schoal really does look impressive, but you can't really bond with them like you can a more interactive individual fish.

True, but you can study them; animal behaviour and that sort of thing; it doesn't have to be interior decorating. I haven't got room at the moment, but I could see myself with a large school of say giant danios and a little notebook, making notes on pecking order and sexual behaviour etc.

That's why I like to keep pairs of non-schoaling fish... they're just generally more behaviorally complex, but like with Inchworm's cory example, there are some social fish that interact with one-another a lot more than most and have more diverse behavior patterns . It's just that, with my white clouds for example, I've never seen them do anything that really surprises or delights me... just follow one-another around and chase the female. Same with every other schoaling fish I've ever owned, aside from cories and khuli loaches (if those count as truly schoaling?)

I think groups of territorial fish in an appropriately sized aquarium are much more interesting to watch because you get to see them have disagreements over territory, re-arrange their own parts of the tank, etc.