Dither fish?

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Sepraes are also fairly nippy. Definitely stick with the high body tetras like diamonds or bleedinghearts. The blue acaras will eat smaller, cylindical ones eventually.
 
The best schoolers are rummy nose tetra. Note the difference between a school and a shoal. A loose aggregation is a shoal and most common tetras shoal rather than school. Bleeding hearts. Serpaes, Colombians, pristella, etc all shoal. Lemons and cardinals will school from time to time but I'll mostly shoal. I've found rummies to be the best. Harlequin rasboras and espei rasboras school well too if you are willing to go with something Asian but will be small enough for your blue acaras to munch on.

I'd forego schooling fish since most are slender enough to be eaten and settle for a deeper bodied tetra that will not school but will do the job of acting as dithers.
 
Yeah I
The best schoolers are rummy nose tetra. Note the difference between a school and a shoal. A loose aggregation is a shoal and most common tetras shoal rather than school. Bleeding hearts. Serpaes, Colombians, pristella, etc all shoal. Lemons and cardinals will school from time to time but I'll mostly shoal. I've found rummies to be the best. Harlequin rasboras and espei rasboras school well too if you are willing to go with something Asian but will be small enough for your blue acaras to munch on.

I'd forego schooling fish since most are slender enough to be eaten and settle for a deeper bodied tetra that will not school but will do the job of acting as dithers.
yeah I reallyyyy like rummynose tetras but don't want to have them all being eaten
 
Blue acaras would do well with Colombian tetras. Both blue fish. Both from Columbia. And the Colombian tetras get a good size and are gorgeous in groups.
 
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I know you want a school,but the tank seems small for them to behave their best.what about 2M/4 F swordtails,then you get free feeders as they breed
 
in a 45 you are a bit limited.
I'm not sure if anyone else mentioned Dwarf Rainbowfish that might be an option.
Danios school the best in smaller tanks imo, my Acara's really only messed with them if I had 5 or less. Giant Danios would be too big for your tank- same thing for the regular sized rainbowfish. Mollies Swordtails Platies ect don't really school at all unless you have a huge space where clouds of them can form. In your tank they will just get fat and loiter at the bottom.
 
I bought 5 lemons a week ago with plans on getting an additional 5 soon. They shoaled pretty tightly at first, but now they're all over the place in pairs and singles and very active. My two angelfish and rotkeil ignore them. Great addition for my aquarium, but if you're looking for the tight shoalers I'd look at something else.
 
I bought 5 lemons a week ago with plans on getting an additional 5 soon. They shoaled pretty tightly at first, but now they're all over the place in pairs and singles and very active. My two angelfish and rotkeil ignore them. Great addition for my aquarium, but if you're looking for the tight shoalers I'd look at something else.
I wonder if they would do better with more fish? Like a school of ten vs five
 
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