Odd schooling behavior?

[cJw]

Greets!

I've 6 rummynose tetras and 4 gold barbs who think they're related and school together.

I suspect it's because of the lone angelfish I have in the tank - safety in numbers an' all. Once the angel moves out, I think maybe they'll split back up a little.

I was wondering what's the weirdest (cross species) school of fish you've ever seen...

 

[TCTFish]

The Odd Couple

Well...this oddity wasn't a school, but an oddity of buddies nonetheless. Here is a photo. The male platy would not leave the pencil's side. This went on for as long as they were together. This was in a store and were finally sold. I don't know if they were sold together or what but it was funny while it lasted. I think...not sure, but the pencil may also be male.

 

[cJw]

Wow, uh, protection maybe? It could just be the pretty orange and reddish colors.

 

[TCTFish]

There is a schooling behavior story I heard from a customer. Has a fairly large FW tank with three different species of schooling fish. He stated that they all schooled together during certain times of the day and then would separate into their own schools according to species during other times of the day.

 

[cJw]

Well, my suspicions are proving to be partially true.

The angelfish moved out last weekend and was replaced by a young female gold gourami and now the gold barbs and rummies are mostly schooling separately. They're also tending to stay off the bottom a little more, which I'm very happy about. Finally, my tank looks like there's more than one fish in it!

For a while there, I was considering a small school of pearl/zebra danios or somesuch just to have some motion in the top 'strata'...

 

[TCTFish]

Considering angels are predatory to some degree...yes. Out of curiosity, was the angel in there before them or introduced after them?

 

[ace]

I had a rummynose and Pencil fish pair up when the rest of their brethren died. They seemed to enjoy it. The same pencil fish also tried to school with some emperor tetras but poor guys just couldn't keep up with them due to his hummingbird style swimming. lol.

 

[anythingscales]

There are many fish that will school together in presence of a predator. I have a tank of congo tetra, giant danios, geophagus (cichlid) and african tigerfish. They all school together when I walk near the tank, and seperate once its calm.

 

[cJw]

The angelfish came in the middle; the rummies were in first, then the angel, and the gold barbs were added last.

An employee @ my lfs said the same thing, basically - "Well, yeah, there's a predator in the water column. They're going to stay as far away as possible!".

 

[tropicfishman]

my black mollyhas a weird fasicanation with my red tailed shark, sometimes when the lights are out and they think no one is looking the shark lets the molly come into his ceramic log cave and hang out, If i end up with mollys with red tails, i'll defintly get into breeding and make some money lol

 

[mr funktastic]

lol wow i thought i was crazy but i had a red tailed shark that was a big butt head to everyone in the tank but 1 platy. it was an orange mickeymouse platy and they went everywhere together lol. i swear the mickey mouse platy was taking tips on how to be mean to the other fish in the tank becasue he started chasing all the fish away from the shark and then the shark just cruised around like he had a body guard