What are some big peaceful schooling fish?

[SanguineRegis]

Hello! I'm doing some brainstorming on what kind of tankmates to put with a south American Lungfish when I eventually put together the fish's forever home. The hypothetical forever tank would be somewhere in the 300 gallon range and I love the idea of having live plants in it. I'd like to have some sort of schooling fish with the beast that's too large to be eaten and would leave the lungfish and plants be.

I've considered Yucatan mollies and Silver Dollars, but Yucatan mollies are tricky to find in my experience and silver dollars would eat any plants I try to keep in the tank.

Any recommendations on peaceful schooling fish in the range of 5 to 7 inches?

 

[phreeflow]

You could try larger species of rainbow fish although not geographically correct. I’d say mascara or filament barbs but the ones I had absolutely destroyed all my plants.

Contact Greg Sage at Select Aquatics. While not on his sales list, he always has some Yucatán mollies around. And he breeds for size

 

[RyanScanner]

Your plants will all become a salad buffet for one night with silver dollars. Believe it or not SAE grow quite big and are great schooling torpedoes + double as effective algae eaters for your plants.

 

[12 Volt Man]

in a 300g you can do a bunch of tinfoil barbs. they get big and are colorful and peaceful. mine are a foot long now. but they will eat plants.

 

[Americancichlidsaredabest]

in a 300g you can do a bunch of tinfoil barbs. they get big and are colorful and peaceful. mine are a foot long now. but they will eat plants.

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+ 1

 

[AR1]

in a 300g you can do a bunch of tinfoil barbs. they get big and are colorful and peaceful. mine are a foot long now. but they will eat plants.

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+2. I have three myself—pretty active and beautiful fish. Personally, I would go for the golden/albino version.

 

[FINWIN]

I've always been curious about the tinfoils. Do they have heavy bioload for their size? I think the lemon ones are nice looking.

 

[esoxlucius]

Your "need" for plants is the killer here. Some good suggestions so far but all but the hardiest plants would be in danger.

If you decided against the plants I think that 6-10 filament barbs would be perfect. They are very active, have beautiful shimmering colours, max out at around 6-7", easy to feed, peaceful, I absolutely love mine.

If you insist on the plants, my choice would be a large school of Dennison barbs, maybe 15-20. A stunning fish, can reach about 6", very active and, again, easy to feed.

I suppose a lot depends on how aggressive/quick your lungfish is too! Both filaments and Dennison's are no slouches, maybe they can survive any potential attempts at predation?

 

[AR1]

I've always been curious about the tinfoils. Do they have heavy bioload for their size? I think the lemon ones are nice looking.

Indeed they do, similar to a pacu. They are very active and skittish, and do best in groups. Ever since I added three to my tank, I’ve had to increase water changes to 80% per week, with an occasional additional 50%, mostly because they are messy eaters as well.

 

[Stanzzzz7]

Pink tailed chalceus school in the upper levels, are geographically correct and don’t eat plants.