all right look what i got normally i would have lights quite a bit lower
and even that i'm not so sure after a 24 hour trip in darkness they're so stressed anyway
the fish that i don't think it really matters i'm floating the bags float them for about 20
minutes to get them temperature acclimated and then i just put them right in the tank all right
so let's get right into it how to school your fish in a smaller size aquarium
alright guys the first thing you want to do when you attempt to school fish
in your aquarium is do a little research check out the species that you want to
school and see what their behaviors are see what they like to eat all the things that you feel you
would need to know to be successful all right so they're in there guys let's go take a closer look
and i'll explain to you what i got going and why the methods i use give you a better chance
of a successful school in your tank okay why blue green chromis guys a school of blue green chromis
is one of the most beautiful things in a reef tank that i've ever kept and that's just my opinion
i've schooled blue green chromis in 55 and 250 gallons and i was more
successful in the 55 gallon than i was in the 250.
what i've found is it's not so much the size of the tank but it's the techniques that you
use to accommodate the fish behavior even in a smaller size tank like 55 or in my case 75 gallons
the second thing you want to do is try to purchase the fish
all the same size when i had one in the school that was quite a bit larger than the others
that became the dominant fish and began to harass and kill off the smaller ones one by one
the next thing i found successful was by adding an odd number group my educated guess is that the odd
numbering doesn't allow them to pair off in groups of two then there'd always be an odd
number of fish however this is just my guess i've added nine into my tank but as you can see
i have eight because one didn't make it i noticed it had some scale
damage and was very weak and it got too close to the mp10 and got sucked right through it
another thing is add them after you've added all your other fish you actually want some aggression
towards the school because what that'll do is take the focus off the fish in the school and they will
band together to defend themselves as a group rather than defending each other within the group
this might be a tough one for some of us but it's a good idea to feed more than twice a
day with a school of chromis i'm trying to make it three times a day right now
if they're not hungry they probably will not fight between each other i can pull feeding
off more than three times a day but you might want to invest in an auto feeder if you can't do that
the blue green chromis is an omnivore so it'll eat mostly meaty foods frozen or dry
i fed them pellets and they'll also eat some herbivore based foods
they also like high flow areas of the tank i'll notice that they swim to the high
flow areas and stay in the school and once again it's turbulent that takes the focus
off the individual fishes within the group and leads to less antagonistic behaviors within
each fish in the group i'd also recommend having at least one more aggressive fish in the tank that
way the school of chromis will band together and be in somewhat of a defense mode most of the time
you can also go as far as adding new chromis
if some of the old ones die off and this maintains the stability of the group
they like places to hide if they feel threatened they'll either group up or go into hiding in
certain places in the tank so it's a good idea to have some hiding places in your reef tank
in the wild they love to hide among the aquapora now if we don't have that they still will find a
place to hide in the live rock under other coral so that should be one thing you want to consider
all right see you next time guys
you