Fish schooling...

[fastfly48]

I just had a thought and thought I'd run it by you guys...

When it comes to schooling do only fish of exactly the same type school together? Or, say, do neons school with cardinals sometimes? Perhaps different danios school with each other also?
See I'd like to get some more danios becasue I only have one leopard danio...would zebra danios would "hang out" with the leopard right?
or...do different types of Cory go together well...
Just a thought.

Ry.

sometimes they do sometimes they don't. For example different kinds of cories will school together but its best to get 3 of each kind (3 pandas adn 3 emerald green) because they do prefer the company of their own kind.
I think its mainly if the fish are the same size as well... because ive seen tetra's of the same size sort of stick together as well.

[workfortheman]

Lol I had a rosy barb pretend he was a serpae tetra for a while, until I got him some freinds! Then he got wayyyyyy too cool for the serpaes!

[Puriti]

I've had 2 kinds of danios before, they stayed seperate but together at the same time, they'd chase each other all the time. My Blue gourami sometimes thinks it's a molly, it's pretty funny lol

[Big C]

I had a medium size denison barb for a while and then I added 6 brilliant rasboras, they kept schooling with the poor lonely barb in spite of being 1/3 of her size!

On the other hand I have 4 phantom tetras and 3 serpae tetras. I got them because I wanted to have them schooling together. Not a chance! They act like they do not see each other!

[Devilishturtles]

I had a Rainbowfish who schooled with my Siver Dollars constantly.

[muddlehead]

since i have small schools in my tank the pristellas hang out with the rummy nose, its weird

[crazycat]

my yoyo and angelicus loaches hang out together. but not with the clown loaches who are too big.

[QTOFFER]

As I understand it, only fish of the same species school together, although fish of different species are sometimes observed hanging out together in a shoal. It's an instinctive defensive mechanism - if there's a predator around, an individual has a better chance of seeing another day if he sticks close to a large group of his own or similar kind. The same behavior drives flocks of birds, herds of gazelles, and groups of mischeivous teenagers.

What's sometimes confusing is that not all fish of the same species that hang out together are really schooling. Take discus or angelfish for example - definitely not schooling species, but juveniles will form a tightly knit group until they pair off.

The aquarium is such an artificial construction, often with fish from all over the world forced to live together in an enclosed space. Maybe this explains why odd combinations of fish seem to school or shoal with each other.

[Tiffi]

I had about 10 silver-tipped teras for a few days. They went so crazy through the tank, up, down, left, right, up, down. I've brought them back because it was just too irritating to look at, but my Endlers and my Otos actually swam with them. I guess they made the whole tank go nuts.

I guess it works if you only have one fish of a different species. He will swim with the others not to be alone, but as soon as you get more of each species they might just ignore each other.