Best 1 inch reef schooling fish?

[LILPACONOT]

What are the best 1 inch reef safe schooling fish?

 

[Cali Reef Life]

I don't know of any 1 inch common reef fish that schools. Smallest I know are dartfish, firefish, cardinals or chromis. They are all under 4 inches. Also Anthias and chalk bass are also good choices.

 

[Wolf89]

Blue eye blue back rainbow fish

 

[DaJMasta]

Masked gobies (though they get to almost an inch and a half).

Not a lot of choices in that size range, though. Some of the other very small free swimming gobies could also be a choice, but perching kinds generally won't school.

 

[LILPACONOT]

Thank yall for the fish, they both seem pretty good fits for my tank, 1 and a half inches is perfectly fine, I was just trying to empathize the fact I wanted them to be very small, thank yall!

 

[MoshJosh]

Mini dart goby?

 

[anthonygf]

Mini dart goby?

Max size is 4 inches.

 

[sdreef]

What are the best 1 inch reef safe schooling fish?

Apogon parvulus, red spot cardinal, grow to 1.5 inches

Zoramia leptacantha, longspine cardinal, grow to 2.5 inches

 

[polyppal]

school of clown gobies

* (j/k. don't do that.)

 

[BradB]

Unlikely you find anything you are happy with.

Chromis stick together at first but spread out and fight as they get bigger and more comfortable.

Cardinals might fit, but are expensive and hard to find.

Both are well above 1 inch.

All the true schooling fish as adults are way too big for even a large tank.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

These are even captive bred.

Yellow Cardinalfish | Ostorinchus luteus | ORA | Oceans, Reefs & Aquariums

Introduce a burst of color and activity to your home aquarium with the brand new ORA Yellow Cardinalfish!

www.orafarm.com

 

[polyppal]

Unlikely you find anything you are happy with.

Chromis stick together at first but spread out and fight as they get bigger and more comfortable.

Cardinals might fit, but are expensive and hard to find.

Both are well above 1 inch.

All the true schooling fish as adults are way too big for even a large tank.

yup. more often in a reef tank, fish that look the same will try to kill each other before they school with each other

 

[polyppal]

These are even captive bred.

Yellow Cardinalfish | Ostorinchus luteus | ORA | Oceans, Reefs & Aquariums

Introduce a burst of color and activity to your home aquarium with the brand new ORA Yellow Cardinalfish!

www.orafarm.com

Those are nice! Ive never seen them in person and can't seem to find any online

 

[WheatToast]

All the true schooling fish as adults are way too big for even a large tank.

yup. more often in a reef tank, fish that look the same will try to kill each other before they school with each other

It really is a shame . Having a school of neon tetra-like fish in a reef system would look fantastic in my opinion!

Other "small" schoolers:

Mosquitofish (Gambusia sp.) and guppies (Poecilia reticulata) can be acclimated to saltwater (like Mollies), though they do not school very tightly and are easily exhausted, even under lower current. I have also found mosquitofish to occasionally nip the fins of tank-mates.



Inland silversides (Menidia beryllina) can be purchased from MBL Aquaculture, though these are larvae that would not survive in a display tank (maybe a refugium) and are said to prefer lower salinities. These reach a size of about 4 inches and I have heard reports of silversides being both very easy and very difficult to feed.




Eastern hulafish (Trachinops taeniatus) are said to tolerate both subtropical and tropical temperatures. I have never seen these on sale, though ORA has bred them. These reach a size of about 4 inches.


Mini dart goby (Aioliops megastigma) are said to be difficult to feed and have success with. These grow a little over 1 inch long.
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/product-mini-dart-goby

Marsh killifish, like the mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus), rainwater killifish (Lucania parva), and sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus) (this last one is said to be very aggressive) can tolerate saltwater, though I doubt they could handle high flow like the mosquitofish and guppies mentioned earlier in this post. These grow to about 2-3 inches long and may hitchhike on macroalgae.
https://gulfspecimen.org/specimen/fish/boney-fish/




Note that the only fish on this list I have cared for in the past are mosquitofish so I may have made a few factual errors.

 

[blaxsun]

Chalk bass are pretty teeny.

 

[Tonycass12]

You need a very large tank to support a school of fish and you will have to constantly replenish for the ones getting bullied and killed off.

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[Big E]

Threadfin cardinals are really nice and inexpensive. They key is getting healthy ones. They don't ship well so I'd go through a LFS if you can.

Threadfin Cardinalfish: Peaceful and Most Impressive in Numbers | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Walk by an LFS sales tank containing a few specimens of threadfin cardinalfish (Zoramia leptacantha), and you might not give them a second glance. Chromatically speaking, this species isn’t exactly a…

reefbuilders.com

 

[MoshJosh]

Max size is 4 inches.

My bad, I retract my statement haha

 

[LeftyReefer]

There are a few anthias species that stay smaller than the others, maxing out at say 3" instead of 4"-5" like some of the larger types of anthias. maybe a few of the 3" types.

 

[LILPACONOT]

Thank yall! I'll probably end up going with the yellow cardinals, just because of how the cardinal fish as a species act