Your Perfect Shoal?

[kevin82]

if you had a spare tank, what would be your ideal shoal of fish. To hopefully keep things sensible, Assume the tank is 4ft max

Assume that there were no tankmates to worry about, all you have to do is concentrate on tank size.


I'll kick this one off, I'd have a group of 10+ purple or coral red pencilfish. They are different from your regular tetras and are very lively. I'm hoping to source some in the coming weeks to feature in my main tank

 

[Jay1983]

30+ Cardinal tetras would be my choice.

Jay

 

[adamlawes13]

clown fish look very nice in big groups, but for me it would have to be black phantom tetras

 

[Dieses Madchen]

30-40 Harlequin Rasboras, with about 15-20 bronze/albino cories on the bottom

 

[StandbySetting]

100-150 Boraras briggitae.

 

[Shovelman]

50-60 Toxotes microlepis ...oh wait...its a 4 foot tank....ok never mind...

 

[moochy13]

loads of scarlet badis. or beunos aires tetra.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

100-150 Boraras briggitae.

I had to google that! LOL Those are so cute!!

 

[mishmash]

A big shoal of congo tetra, or Dwarf Neon rainbowfish

 

[Fishy friend2]

100-150 Boraras briggitae.

+1 i love these little guys, they are so pretty... and teency

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

20-odd Pareutropius buffei or debauwi ("Debauwi Catfish", former is often missold as the latter), a pretty unique super tight schooling, diurnal, midwater catfish genus.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Assume that there were no tankmates to worry about, all you have to do is concentrate on tank size.

Schooling is a defensive behavior. Without the presence of some perceived threat most schooling fish will just tend to meander a lot rather than stay in a school. The trick is to find the proper fish which will not actually harm the schoolers nor scare them so badly they simply hide. Yet it must be big enough and active enough that the fish will tend to stay bunched.

That said, I am partial to Hemigrammus bleheri. This is a lovely rummy nose tetra.

 

[This Old Spouse]

100-150 Boraras briggitae.

How do you think these would do in my 20g long tank that now just has cory and some ghost shrimp? I'm looking for a mid to top dweller that's striking, and it seems I could get quite a few of these since they're so tiny. And CUTE!

 

[StandbySetting]

100-150 Boraras briggitae.

How do you think these would do in my 20g long tank that now just has cory and some ghost shrimp? I'm looking for a mid to top dweller that's striking, and it seems I could get quite a few of these since they're so tiny. And CUTE!

They'd do fine, they're quite bold for such a small fish. I have 20 in my 70 litre along with about 6 Panda Corydoras, 3 Dwarf Gourami's, 13 or so Ember Tetra's and a BN pleco.

 

[This Old Spouse]

Great! Now to find them ...