Blue Reef Chromis And Schooling

[DAW1906]

I was thinking about getting a school of Blue Reef Chromis for my Tank and wanted to get a bit more information. Currently in my tank I have 1 Black Cap Basselet, 1 Royal Gramma, 1 Firefish, 1 Mystery Wrasse, 2 black and white False Clowns and 2 orange and white false clowns. My tank is 120 gallons with 120+ lbs of live rock. My question is it is my understanding that the schooling behavior is brought on by a need to feel safe from a natural predator, so will the schooling behavior still occur in the absence of such a threat. I was wondering what you all think about the school of Blue chromis is there a fish that I could add to induce the schooling behavior but not be a threat to my other fish. I was thinking maybe a purple Tang? Any advice would be helpful. I would also like to add to my collection of fish 2 Flametail Blennies and 1 Radiant Wrasse. Any Advice on this would be helpful as well.

DAW

[akrimmel]

remember chromis do school and when you buy them always buy in odd numbers. chromis will pick on the weak ones in the school and kill them off!!

[rigleautomotive]

what does odd # have to do with pecking order,i did not know chromis could count.any way a group of at least 5 is best and they will school if not getting stressed by other tank mates.i do not see a problem adding with your current live stock.purple tangs do fine with chromis.another cool schooling fish is dispar anthias

[akrimmel]

ask around that is what you will be told odd#'s. heard it many times over. i didn't say that is the rule, just passing info along.

[Marinemom]

It does seem that odd numbers work best when it comes to chromis. They do need to be acclimated properly so this will add to the success of keeping them. A lot of people have problems with chromis including myself. They tend to kill off all of the others of thier kind until only one is left. This seems to be the case more often in smaller tanks. Good luck with them. I hope you have better luck with them then I did.

Marinemom