School of yellow striped cardinalfish??

reef lover · Aug 18, 2018

Title pretty much states it. Has anybody had success with them schooling in a large tank?? Have 6 coming in today...hoping to see them school together once out of qt. Thanks in advance.

Reefcowboy · Aug 18, 2018

I'm puzzled by cardinals. I had never kept them and bought 4 blue stripped, three Pajama and three Bangai.

Two blue stripes chased and killed the other two, the dominant bangai chases the other two and doesn't let them eat, and the pajamas are also backed into hiding by the bangai....

The tank is a 150 with plenty of room. My experience has been expect for anything, every schooling attempt I had ended up with dominance issues and aggression.
Similar to what we see with green chromis

eatbreakfast · Aug 18, 2018

Not all cardinals school. Yellow striped cardinals will break off into pairs.

LobsterOfJustice · Aug 18, 2018

I worked at a LFS and we had a group of something like 8-12 in the display 180g. By the time they were full grown they all split up and hung out by themselves.

reef lover · Aug 18, 2018

Well thats discouraging...from my research seemed like people had mixed luck with them...i guess we shall see.

Dom · Aug 18, 2018

Only once have I heard of yellow cardinals schooling. They were 8 in a 310 gallon tank.

The owner himself was surprised that they schooled and attributed it to the fact that they were QT'd in a tank much smaller than the DT. He believes that being in such close proximity to each other during QT caused the carry over to the DT.

Sounds reasonable to me.

reef lover · Aug 18, 2018

Hmmm...qt is 10 gls...dt is 120 . I hope so. Theyre here and floating now all look well...

Reefcowboy · Aug 18, 2018

I think schooling is a reaction to the environment as well. In a tank where the fish are not comfortable they will school as a way of survival.

When they acclimate and have ways of developing their territory, they become aggressive and split/kill others of less dominance

reef lover · Aug 18, 2018

Reefcowboy said:
I think schooling is a reaction to the environment as well. In a tank where the fish are not comfortable they will school as a way of survival.

When they acclimate and have ways of developing their territory, they become aggressive and split/kill others of less dominance

Hope not. Everything ive read on this variety says theyll form a strict hierarchy without aggression....most likely as they grow older and accustomed to aquarium life they'll not feel threatened enough to school. But theyll still add some much needed movement to the tank. I think ill update and keep this thread going to see how they react over the years to come.

Dom · Aug 18, 2018

reef lover said:
Hmmm...qt is 10 gls...dt is 120 . I hope so. Theyre here and floating now all look well...

That may do it.

norfolkgarden · Aug 18, 2018

The scale of your tank should be in your favor.

Getting fish to school (shoal) has been one of my pet peeves / Holy Grails for the past 6 years.

From watching and reading about other people's successes,

Scale is everything.

From the scale of the tank to the tiny shoaling fish.
To the scale of the 'Jerk' fish to the tiny shoaling fish. To the scale of the long branching open home area.

1. Minimum tank size seems to be 100 gallons. 200 is better. 300 is even better. 300 gallons seems to be the sweet spot from reading about other people's success stories.

2. The shoaling fish need to be small. 3" or less. They should also be young specimens.

3. They should have a 'jerk' fish that is noticeably larger than them that annoys them (without eating them). It gives them a 'outsider' to rally against and reduces internal hierarchy squabbles.

4. They should have a large home area of open long branching Staghorn or something similar that they can swim in/around and hide in and hang out in comfortably, without being stacked up against each other, like sleeping sheepshead stacked up against a concrete pile (whole 'nother story [emoji4]).

None of this is from personal experience. Just from reading about other people's success stories.

We are currently attempting a harem of 6 1" Royal Gramma in a 75 gallon tank.
The tank has almost 200 pounds of holey live rock in it for bolt holes and overhangs.
Plenty of different sized holes so the smallest can hide from the larger ones.
The 'Jerk' fish is just a pygmy angelfish, but it is doing its job well.
Everything is working so far, but it has only been three weeks so it is far too early to tell.

Look forward to hearing about your success with your Cardinals!

reef lover · Aug 19, 2018

Thanks for the response!! I do have a jerk purple tang that chases everybody. And i have lots of huge colonies of gorgs for them to hide in.
As of now in the qt they are staying huddled together...so good so far...

ca1ore · Aug 20, 2018

norfolkgarden said:
The scale of your tank should be in your favor.

Getting fish to school (shoal) has been one of my pet peeves / Holy Grails for the past 6 years.

From watching and reading about other people's successes,

Scale is everything.

From the scale of the tank to the tiny shoaling fish.
To the scale of the 'Jerk' fish to the tiny shoaling fish. To the scale of the long branching open home area.

1. Minimum tank size seems to be 100 gallons. 200 is better. 300 is even better. 300 gallons seems to be the sweet spot from reading about other people's success stories.

2. The shoaling fish need to be small. 3" or less. They should also be young specimens.

3. They should have a 'jerk' fish that is noticeably larger than them that annoys them (without eating them). It gives them a 'outsider' to rally against and reduces internal hierarchy squabbles.

4. They should have a large home area of open long branching Staghorn or something similar that they can swim in/around and hide in and hang out in comfortably, without being stacked up against each other, like sleeping sheepshead stacked up against a concrete pile (whole 'nother story [emoji4]).

None of this is from personal experience. Just from reading about other people's success stories.

We are currently attempting a harem of 6 1" Royal Gramma in a 75 gallon tank.
The tank has almost 200 pounds of holey live rock in it for bolt holes and overhangs.
Plenty of different sized holes so the smallest can hide from the larger ones.
The 'Jerk' fish is just a pygmy angelfish, but it is doing its job well.
Everything is working so far, but it has only been three weeks so it is far too early to tell.

Look forward to hearing about your success with your Cardinals!

Agree with all of this to get a group of fish to shoal. Schooling is never happening. Hope the OP has better luck than I did. I got 6; 2 were DoA; 1 jumped; and 2 subsequently died. The one that remains schools like crazy with himself LOL.

reef lover · Aug 20, 2018

Well i hope i have better luck!!

norfolkgarden · Aug 20, 2018

We still have 6 of the 7 Royals. I shave off small amounts of frozen food continuous till everyone gets some and it falls down to the serpent stars, several times a day. Maybe 10-15 minutes max each time.
Ended up working out of town for a week, 3 days after we got them. The one hiding the furthest back wasn't there when I came home.
Better half does a great job feeding 1/2 cubes several times a day but doesn't really know which fish are which.
I have learned not to ask too many questions and just be glad they are fed frozen as much as they are.

The other six are all finally turning into little fat torpedoes.
Hoping to keep all 6 so far.

reef lover · Aug 21, 2018

norfolkgarden said:
We still have 6 of the 7 Royals. I shave off small amounts of frozen food continuous till everyone gets some and it falls down to the serpent stars, several times a day. Maybe 10-15 minutes max each time.
Ended up working out of town for a week, 3 days after we got them. The one hiding the furthest back wasn't there when I came home.
Better half does a great job feeding 1/2 cubes several times a day but doesn't really know which fish are which.
I have learned not to ask too many questions and just be glad they are fed frozen as much as they are.

The other six are all finally turning into little fat torpedoes.
Hoping to keep all 6 so far.

Glad to hear the 6 are doing well...just started prazi on these guys as a fresh water dip showed presence of flukes...no signs of ich or velvet. And they are all eating like pigs!!

reef lover · Oct 15, 2018

Well these guys have been in dt for a couple weeks now. Made a short video of the tank and in it you can see how they loosely shoal together. They spend most of thier time like this occassionally they split off and roam the tank but for the most part stay together....so far.