To keep a group (5-7) Blue-Green Reef Chromis or Lyretail Anthias OR NOT...?

[salty150]

Been hearing some anecdotal evidence that you cannot keep a group of Blue-Green Reef Chromis or Lyretail Anthias in a reef aquarium...

As you will soon only have two left - the others will get picked-off / killed.

Anyone have any luck with either of these...?

Or any other schooling / dither fish...?

Aquarium is 180 gallon - 6 ft. x 2 ft. x 2 ft.

 

[rocket098]

Chromis yes they are pretty hardy anthias not so much. But can be done.

 

[jhadaway]

Bangaii cardinals!!! Pajama cardinals! I have 2 pajamas and one bangaii. All tank raised. The bangaii looks pretty bizarre online but they are really neat looking fish. They brought out all my other fish. I know saltwateraquariun.com usually has the pajamas available. They come straight from ora. They go on sale every now and then too. 15-20% off. Btw, i have 1 chromi and he is spastic, hyper crazy fish. Everybody picks on him.

 

[jhadaway]

Oops, you really need to consider your flow too. Lots of dither type fish do not do well in high flow tanks.

 

[Tamberav]

Main concern to keeping them alive is Uronema.

Whether they pick each other off or not seems to be tank dependent. Not everyone has this issue but it also certainly is in some tanks.

 

[Neptune 555]

I have a group of 5 blue/green chromis for 3 years now... I know they said I would end up with 2 but I still have a group... the swim in groups most mornings and nights... during the day they divide. 180 gallon reef. They eat like beasts...

I am adding one anthias in the next week... If he makes it I will add in some females.

 

[rocket098]

Same on the chromis and in my opinion if you have a group that is thriving don’t add any more chromis because you can upset the balance or bring in the disease

 

[Uncle99]

4 year old pair of common anthias.
Started with 5, ended with one concert to make and his mate. 1 jumped.

 

[tsharpe291]

I had 5 anthias at one time that was quickly reduced to 3. After that they thrived.

 

[NeedAReef]

anthias are just way more beautiful in my opinion however much more costly so i went with 5 pj cardinals, and a year later...i still have 5

 

[Hugh Mann]

I was actually going to ask a very similar question. I already have 1 chromis, but want a school for my 260. Was thinking of getting 6-7 more. I’m wondering if they’ll murder the original guy, or if they’d kill eachother in quarantine, even if I used my old 55?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

The following threads may be helpful here:

Keeping a school of chromis?

I'm looking at a tank upgrade to a much larger tank, and I've always wanted to have a larger (20+) school of green chromis. The issue is, every time I've tried groups of them (3-5) over the years, they inevitably whittle themselves down to 1 Alpha Chromis. Has anyone had luck keeping a school...

www.reef2reef.com

Let's talk about schooling fish...

So my 125 build has moved along nicely, and I've been thinking about which fish I'd like to place in the tank. I'm thinking I'd like to make this a tank which features schooling fish. I've been considering Cardinals to start. Also, I have been considering the Chromis. Any other suggestions...

www.reef2reef.com

And here’s a list of the general info I’ve been able to find about factors that likely influence schooling/shoaling behavior in our tanks (this is one of the posts in the first thread above):

My understanding is that keeping a large school can theoretically work, but - as mentioned above - there are a number of things to keep in mind with schooling:

- The number of schooling fish in the tank (I've heard odd numbers are preferred, and the preferred number of fish that I've seen seems to be 9 to 11 at a minimum; the more fish, the more diluted the aggression is between them)

- The size of the tank (for quality of life purposes for your fish, bigger is better - yes, some animals will be calm when shoved into tiny spaces with large numbers of conspecifics where if there was just one or two conspecifics, it would be a deathmatch, but they obviously wouldn't be happy in that situation long-term)

- The amount fed, the quality of the feed, and the frequency of feedings (basically more food = less aggression; and better food = better health = happier, less aggressive fish [theoretically])

- Tankmates (big, scary tankmates that the schooling fish could view as a threat may act as an outside force that keeps the schooling fish focused on not getting killed rather than on fighting amongst themselves)

- The scape of the tank (lots of fish need lots of places to hide/sleep - the more hiding places, the safer the fish feel; line-of-sight-breaks can also help with feeling safe)

That's all I've got for the moment (and pretty much all of it has been mentioned above), but basically - to my understanding - it's a balance of making the fish feel threatened enough by external sources to prevent infighting while also making them feel safe enough (largely through their numbers, the tank's scape, and food security) to not be too stressed. If you're able to strike that balance, you should be able to see schooling behavior (to the best of my current understanding).

 

[dstockwell]

I have three blue green chromis so far so good

 

[reddogf5]

I wanted a school of blue green chromis, went through 6 (2 groups of 3), 1 left. Of the first group, 1 died in QT, the second in the tank. the second group all died in QT. Swore them off, they can stay in the ocean.