schools out

[kennyman]

My neons are all over the place and will not stay in school 
The hatchets stay together but dont move around much. I would really like a tight school of brightly coloured midwater swimmers that can survive in my hardwater planted aquarium. What kind of suggestions do you have?

55 gal / temp 78F / PH 7.8 /

5 angles
5 marble hatchet
5 neon tetra
2 BN pleco
1 otto (his friends disappeared)
3 amano shrimp
1 skunk loach (snail control)
2 leopard cories

[Brine]

i don't know if they can meet the tank parameters but i have two different schools of Rasboras that school nicely.

[succinctfish]

Here is an interesting article on schooling, why fish school, and why they often don't school as we would like in an aquarium.  They end up milling, which isn't the same effect.  With 5 angels in a 55, depending on their size at the moment, there really isn't room for dithers to school effectively, the bright unified flash of colour and movement we all long to see.  Even in our 6 foot long, 135 gallon tank, the cardinals mill, only the rummynose school, and it is beautiful to watch.  The neons probably aren't impressed with only being a gaggle of 5 fish, that's too few to constitute the safety of a school.
Some medium sized rainbows would look lovely in your tank as a mid water fish, and they will hang out together, and should be able to tolerate your pH.
As an aside, get some more cories, they will help everyone in the tank be calm and they are a schooling fish and don't do well in twos. 

[kennyman]

cool article 

So my planting sems to suit the plan but the extra angles disrupt the school trying to move from one side to the other. Oh and I need to chase them around with the net from time to time 

The angles were a recent additon to add more interest to the tank, but perhaps a bigger school of neons and a second school of rasbora would have been a better choice 

[Julie]

Hi Kenny, 5 cichlids in a tank are scaring your students.  I had the same thing with the Discus.  I had moderate success with the black neons as they are a tad bit larger.  Another thing I noticed was with the lighting, the schools liked the light and tended to stay in the brightly lit areas.

[succinctfish]

cool article 


The angles were a recent additon to add more interest to the tank, but perhaps a bigger school of neons and a second school of rasbora would have been a better choice 

As much as I love angels, with 5 in a 55, you're probably going to end up with a pair that pushes the other three and eveyone else into a third of the tank when they are ready to spawn.  They are beautiful fish, and very interactive, but they get big and unless you just want two in the end, or enjoy constant squabbling, another smaller fish might accomplish better what you are trying to achieve in your tank.  Of course, you could always get a much bigger tank, for the sake of the fish of course. 

[kennyman]

Right now it is just a game of king for a day between the angles but I suppose when/if a pair develops I will have to look at the best ways to diffuse the situation. It was hard to decide how many angles to go with. I read one alone will go Rambo on a comunity tank and that three angels equals one dead angle so I went with 5.

Perhaps keeping only one angel and adding a second school of rasbora and more neons will serve the tank best. I dont know. I guess I have reached a point where I need to let the angel thing sort itself out before I try to work on the shooling issues of the little guys 

[renadia]

I have 1 angel in my 75 gal community tank and he's very peacefull.

I find that my school of 6 cardinals always swim as a group they are so cute, I plan on adding some more and the 7 Rasbora espei also shcool toghether, these are my best students! 

The Longfin Serpae Tetra are all over the place!

In the 10 gal the Neons are not good in school 

I just added 10 cherry barbs on sunday and they have been schooling with the rasbora espei.

[kennyman]

Well after the Karen Randall talk I went downtown and picked up 5 more neons and 10 Emerald eyed Rasbora. There are now neons milling about in every nook and cranny of my 55 but the Rasbora are staying tight! It might have something do with the perceived predation by the Angels but I am sure those lunges of smacking jaws are really just missed kisses 

It would seem the Rasbora are a bit too small at the moment but its been 24 hours and they are all still there so there is good hope that they will grow past this little issue. Now if they only stay together 6 months from now all will be good