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Shoaling fish in hard water

parotet

parotet

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Joined
12 Oct 2013
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Location
Valencia, Spain
Hi, I'm reading these days to try to decide which fishes will fit best in my new setup. It will be a 60 cm tank densily planted, driftwood, some grey sand on the foreground, mid light level and co2 dosed.

I would like shoaling fishes and I have learnt that good candidates are rummy nose, ember tetra, Espei rasbora and lemon tetra (many more, but these are the ones I like). I can imagine at least 10 of them, probably with some corydoras and shrimps.

3 important things I guess will be important: my ph is 7.4 (at least in the tank I have), I have hard water (won't use RO, just tap water) and it will be an uncovered tank (would like to avoid big jumpers).

I know most species not coming from the wild can adapt to good range of conditions, but I would like a nice display of colours.
 
Sawbwa are lovely fish, but are schooling rather than shoaling. Depends how tight you want them to be. Males are also highly combatative in my experience, at least in the presence of breeding females. I'm down to 2 adult males from my original 6. I thought I was losing them to old age, but having spoken to another Sawbwa breeder he observed the same thing - males fight so much that the weaker ones eventually succumb to stress or disease over the course of a year or so until you're left with just 2 or 3 in a tank. My remaining 2 adult males now consider the 3'x3' tank large enough for the pair of them to be peaceful, but I wouldn't fancy their chances in a 60cm. I think they're a more complex species to maintain long term than many people think.
 
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I nominate danio erythromicron, but only if the tank is heavily planted. I rarely see mine though, but when I do they are a good looking fish- but only when happy.
 
darren636 said:
I nominate danio erythromicron, but only if the tank is heavily planted. I rarely see mine though, but when I do they are a good looking fish- but only when happy.
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Will they school?... And just another thing (English is not my mother language) what is the difference between schooling and shoaling? Couldn't find it on the dictionary.
 
What I look for is: tight school fish, for hard water, non jumpers.... And beautiful, of course (but all of them are, no problem with this).

I've done more research and it looks like lemon tetra and rasbora espei fit well in these conditions, isn't it? Not sure if lemon tetra schools only when frightened... It won't be a community tank
 
Fish usually group close together when scared, this is not normal in aquarium life
 
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Schooling is when fish will remain tightly bunched all the time like sardines, schoaling is when the live together in numbers but bunch up when threatened.
Most aquarium fish are schoaling and the few schooling ones we do have tend to stop in aquariums or as they mature.


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Thanks for the explanation... so, I've seen espei rasbora schoaling in tanks like my future one (hard water, 60 cm, very planted), but never lemon tetra... too large for this tank? Too sensitive to hard water? Not schooling?
 
From my personnal experience, any group of fish when they're +10, schools only when you put your hands in the tank. So Iain Sutherland is absolutly right.
 
parotet said:
Thanks for the explanation... so, I've seen espei rasbora schoaling in tanks like my future one (hard water, 60 cm, very planted), but never lemon tetra... too large for this tank? Too sensitive to hard water? Not schooling?
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Info on both:

Espei Rasbora - Trigonostigma espei – Lambchop Rasbora — Seriously Fish

Lemon Tetra - Hyphessobrycon pulchripinnis (Lemon Tetra) — Seriously Fish

As others have stated, I find it very rare for fish to school. I think to see this behaviour regularly you would need a bigger tank with a decent number of fish and something else in there to make them concerned enough to school. Without any sort of threat I find that most fish just chill out and do their own thing.
 
mikeappleby said:
Yup. All the photos of tanks with schooling fish have a person waving cardboard above them, under the lights, to mimic a bird just before the shot is taken.
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ha! I never even contemplated such a thing. I just assumed they waited for hours for the perfect shot !
 
Rummy nose tetra's stick together fairly well but,,, they may have trouble with moderately hard to hard water unless drip acclimated over an hour or two. Can tell when they are comfortable from crimson nose which indictaes all is well.
Pale pink nose is common when first introduced to new surrounding's, but after a day or two ,the bright crimson nose should be indicator that all is well.
Lemon tetra's are a good choice ,active,much more adaptable to broader range of water chemistry.
With this said,,I am fully prepared to hear from those who keep the rummy nose in portland cement.betta's in bowl's,etc,,,with no issues.🙄
 
Just to prove the point, i've kept Rummys in mod. hard water, for the last 3+ years with no problems 🙂
Personally, a 60cm tank is too small for such an active fish, but that's me.
T.Espei & T.Hengli are excellent fish, but like most Rasboras, tend to be jumpers IMO (though floating plants help to keep down the number of escapees)
 
ive put some Brevibora dorsiocellata in my 120 for a week now, never had such tight schooling fish. They are doing exactly what i really hoped they would - tight knit ball of fish staying in the top 1/3rd of the tank. No doubt they will stop doing this as they grow but having 20 odd larger barbs below them probably helps.

Sadly they are soft water.
 
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