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Okay, so when we set up our 55gal 2.5 months ago one of the species we added was a school of 8 Harlequin Rasboras. Well, one of them didn't make it home alive so that one was replaced and then another one didn't make it but it seemed to have trouble swimming to begin with... anyhow so we eventually ended up with 6 of them and they never really school. There might be 3 of them hanging out for awhile, sometimes as many as 4 at once but they are not acting like a tight school... do we just not have enough of them to see good schooling behavior? Oh, and because I'm sure someone will ask
their tankmates are: 1 gold gourami, 2 blue dwarf gouramis, 5 platies (+ babies), 2 pepper corys, 4 albino corys.
and our water param: ammo: 0; nitrIte: 0; nitrAte: 20
thanks for any input, no hurry or anything, just curious about their behavior and had a few minutes to type tonight.

-Beth

yes they r schooling i dont know i guess theirs nothing big and scary in their to make them school i would say you could add a rainbow shark my tetras swim when they see him

I agree with Bratyboy2 that a "big" fish would make them school more, but also if you can try and get some more because they like to be in schools of 8+. Good luck

Never kept them myself but I've always heard they're one of the best schooling fish.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

i have a 30 planted tank with 9 harlenquin rasboras and 5 black rasboras.
their tanks mates are a pair of dwarf tri color gouramies, 5 von rio tetras and 4 emerald green corydoras. The black rasboras will school around the harlequins, but the harlequin most of the time don't. I think a big fish would make them school. I like them all over the place though.
the black rasbora (just like the harlequin only all black) do the schooling.
they are a beautiful fish, school or not. i will say with a little stress the all school up and stick together. stress being the emeralds mating.
I would buy more of the harlequins, and maybe more of diffrent types. black rasboras, lamb chop. you have a lot of room in a 50 gallon

I had 5 Harlequins with no big fish and they were the best schoolers I have ever seen. I'm very surprised yours are not schooling tightly. Are they healthy looking?

My Scapes

to answer tetratech: well, we tried to get decent looking ones at the LCFS but they don't look the best, one is missing an eye (happened before we got him, we felt sorry for him) and the rest just don't seem as good looking as we've seen them elsewhere... hubby was being cheap so we bought them at a particular mart.

to answer everyone else: The gold gourami is a little aggressive but as she seems to pick on our largest platy I don't think the rasboras even notice her... and I would love to add more fish but as we have 11 platy fry in the 10g in the kitchen that need to move soon I'm afraid we would be overstocked... anyone in GA want platies?? Anyhow, I was wondering if they weren't schooling because they weren't scared of anyone. That's probably it. Thanks everyone for your help.

bottom line you need more healthy rasboras to get a good school!
10 or more!!!!
your gouramies should enough to make the rasboras school.
i love my rasboras