Shoaling Behavior In Fish

Truck · Dec 11, 2009

Over the past few days, I have been chewing over a few thoughts in my mind and was wondering what others though:

When I set my tank up I did a fish in cycle with 7 ember tetras, and a few weeks ago I did a water change and they vanished, I think they may have gone up the siphon tube so ever since I have ensured that there is no way possible in which they can get up the tube.

In another topic today someone said "the more fish of the shoaling species, the tighter they'll shoal" which through up the question in my mind as to whether more ember tetras would mean me seeing them more, and better shoaling behavior. I don't see my Ember tetras roaming the tank that often and they tend to hide in the plants, so I was wondering if I bought another 20 or so, the shoaling behavior would be a lot better. what are your thoughts/experiences with this?

I was contemplating in getting Trigonostigma hengeli to replace the ember tetras because I know for a fact they shoal well.

Cheers,

Gilli · Dec 11, 2009

Well obvioulsy the more of the fish you have in the tank the more chance of seeing more of them, but my experience with schoaling fish is once they get comfortable with their surroundings they all tend to go off and do their own thing or split into small groups of 2 or 3 and then all get back together briefly every so often! My cardinals and neons which are the only schoaling fish i have at the moment only ever tend to group and stay grouped if they are worried something out of the ordinary is going on.

loraxchick · Dec 11, 2009

Gilli said:
Well obvioulsy the more of the fish you have in the tank the more chance of seeing more of them, but my experience with schoaling fish is once they get comfortable with their surroundings they all tend to go off and do their own thing or split into small groups of 2 or 3 and then all get back together briefly every so often! My cardinals and neons which are the only schoaling fish i have at the moment only ever tend to group and stay grouped if they are worried something out of the ordinary is going on.

this would make sense as shoaling behavior is a survival mechanism. if they feel comfortable, they drift apart and come quickly back into a shoal when threatened. like a baitfish in the ocean and their shoaling behavior (they get tighter and tighter with predators around).
cheers

mattlee · Dec 11, 2009

shoaling fish will be more tightly grouped as safety in numbers applies, but as stated above if they have nothing to fear then they will split up and do thier own thing :good:

my praecox rainbows group up when i turn the lights off so i guess it must frighten them a bit.....

snowflake311 · Dec 11, 2009

Do you have other fish in the tank? My red eye tetras school 80% or the time. I have just 7. Every now and then they will. Go seperate ways. I have 5 xray tetra they just stay close but not a tight school. My new emperor tetras I have 2 m 2 f the 4 will pair up or just do thier own thing. They don't really school.

If you have over 20 schooling fish they should school more. But they might just stay close not in a tight school. Give them time let them settle in. They might be just checking things out.