[kien]

what i've noticed about "schooling fish" over the years is that they tend to drift out of the school after a while. Schooling is a defensive mechanism. Safety in numbers. It makes them feel secure. Whenever I have put schools in (chromis, anthias, cardinals, etc), they school for up to a few months but after that they start to feel comfortable and come to realize that there aren't really any predators in the tank. It starts with one of the fish breaking rank and swimming on its own, then another one and the next thing I know they are all over the place and only come together as a school on rare occasions. I suppose in that case they are still schooling, but for the most part I just end up with a bunch of the same fish swimming all over the place. Maybe I just never had enough critical mass of fish for them to stay in the school. Maybe this is just in my tanks but that's been my experience :-)

Anyway, my favourite schooling fish are the barletts or queen anthias. I used to have a school of 6 pajama cardinals but my wife said they look like Gollum wearing pajamas so i sold them (save for one). They did school for the short while that I had them.