Fire fish schooling

Cruz Mc5 · Dec 15, 2018

Didn’t the BRS 160 start off with a group of fire fish that ended up not making it?

mta_morrow · Dec 15, 2018

Cruz Mc5 said:
Didn’t the BRS 160 start off with a group of fire fish that ended up not making it?

Yup!

joseph scott · Dec 15, 2018

I Have two regular fire fish in a 75 gallon for a year so far. They are always together, no other fish chase them, or pick at them. They are housed with 1 large purple tang, maroon clown, male lyretail anthias, valentini pufferfish, canary blenny, yellow watchman goby, flame hawkfish, and a springeri dottyback. All of these fish were put in this tank about the same time, the only fish that was picked on and died was an orchid dottyback that the springeri would not stop picking on. Most aquarists would probably say this group should not work, but every fish is different,and this is very easy going group of fish.

mta_morrow · Dec 15, 2018

joseph scott said:
I Have two regular fire fish in a 75 gallon for a year so far. They are always together, no other fish chase them, or pick at them. They are housed with 1 large purple tang, maroon clown, male lyretail anthias, valentini pufferfish, canary blenny, yellow watchman goby, flame hawkfish, and a springeri dottyback. All of these fish were put in this tank about the same time, the only fish that was picked on and died was an orchid dottyback that the springeri would not stop picking on. Most aquarists would probably say this group should not work, but every fish is different,and this is very easy going group of fish.

Nice group of fish!

Not typical at all and like you said, each fish is different!

I’m glad it’s working for you!

mort · Dec 15, 2018

DirtDiggler2823 said:
It bothers me that the LFS' have been trying to get me to but groups of these fish. I would have had a bloodbath on my hands.

I don't mean this in a nasty way but often lfs advice is somewhat lacking in accuracy (especially if you get a saturday boy) because they are only temporarily looking after a species. I ran a lfs and always kept firefish in groups because they do well together for quite some time and due to lack of space in shop tanks it's often easier than putting them with other more dominant species. I knew they don't do well longterm in groups so always advised singles and explained why but if you didn't know I can see why they would advise groups as they do well initially.
This is why it's so imperative to do your own research, we can't all know everything but profit isn't always the motivation either.

DirtDiggler2823 · Dec 15, 2018

mort said:
I don't mean this in a nasty way but often lfs advice is somewhat lacking in accuracy (especially if you get a saturday boy) because they are only temporarily looking after a species. I ran a lfs and always kept firefish in groups because they do well together for quite some time and due to lack of space in shop tanks it's often easier than putting them with other more dominant species. I knew they don't do well longterm in groups so always advised singles and explained why but if you didn't know I can see why they would advise groups as they do well initially.
This is why it's so imperative to do your own research, we can't all know everything but profit isn't always the motivation either.

Good insight.