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I was told a while ago that schooling fish should be kept in odd numbers. Has anyone been told this as well.

each fish does have a recomennded number to keep with others of its kind but odds and evens have nothing to do with it

i like feesh

yeah, this was a 'general rule' for aquarium aesthetics mentioned in very early texts. i remember the man i got my first goldfish from (a man in his 60's in the mid 70's), telling me that three fantails would look better than 2 in my tank. it had something to do with the way the eye travels, and i believe it was usually for small numbers, ie 1, 3, 5 - once you get over that number it doesn't matter, but the texts didn't justify why they thought this was the case.

i think most of us would agree that the best number to keep fish at replicates as near as possible their natural grouping patterns, or allows us to breed them successfully.

if we think about it, nature's got the grouping thing all worked out. wild guppies for example - boys brighter than girls, boys get eaten by predators more, a small number of boys can and will inseminate huge numbers of girls. cichlids on the other hand need pairs or harems to protect territories and raise fry. tetra schools number in their thousands because they are a main food source for lots of higher order predators. i never saw an 'unbalanced looking' large school of tetras!

you've piqued my interest, i think i'm gonna try to look up a quote for you. dunno if i still have the books in question.

justin

Just thought id chip in and say I thought that response from jase was very good. Rainbows for example can be very sexual and males pester females, so more females than males takes the stresses and strains from daily harrassment off them a little,thus increasing their longevity. Tiger barb females test their males often with biting, so you might want more males, angels and discus are in a state of heirarchical flux, still practising the usual cichlid pair bonding within larger shoals, and you have to be aware of the sexes in proportion and who gets on with who for things to run smoothly, it goes on an on,species by species, but it says to me, that if you want successful shoals, no one rule suits all , and that you should look at the pressures of the sexes to each other from each other, and cater for that.

Two of my schools are even (Debauwi catfish = 8, Sterbai Corys = 6) and they're all happy. I have a group of 3 Panda Corys but honestly I will try to expand the group anyway as 3 is on the low side (and was all they had available at the time).

jase, I imagine if one is speaking aesthetically, once you surpass 5 or 6 it can become much more difficult to count the number. I remember when I was first counting out the debauwi's I was getting I took a bit of time to count them up, and the LFS worker had to take some time counting them in the bag as well. Probably, the brain stops recognizing how many fish there are and just sits back to respect your school as a whole (especially if they're as fast moving as debauwi's, lol).

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

that's right, shini - after 5 it's harder to tell with fast movers.

steven, i have just looked through a few of my fishkeeping books, but can't find a reference for it. probably in my old stuff in storage.

I really don't think it makes any difference. I've kept odd and even shoals, and even the same shoal in odd and even numbers, and it's made no difference to any of them. Out of interest, where were you told this? I've never heard it before and i'm intrigued about where it came from.

My father in law (15 year fish keeper) told me this one day. I have no idea why or how he knows this. I then was told this from the local fish store clerk. He had no idea why this was.

With smaller numbers 3,5,&7 it is just for looks only BUT there is no set rule as IT MUST BE DONE or else your tank will look out of balance.
If you are breeding you must in some cases have only two 1M & 1FM others 1M to 2-3 FM these are good rules but only apply with breeding.
Some species can be kept as a one only and some times one only per tank.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

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Keith

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