Coal Grunter are generally not considered to be a good community specie?? This is not completely true.
Coal Grunter can definitely be kept in some community tanks, under some circumstances. It is important to choose the "community" carefully. Anything that can be swallowed, will be swallowed, so no neon tetras! Anything that can't stand up for it self will be bullied, sometimes until they are eventually killed, so no slow moving sluggish fish such as goldfish! Anything that can be torn apart and eaten will be torn apart and eaten, so no guppies! It is also necessary to have appropriate aquascaping. In other words, a good environment to allow all the tank-mates somewhere to dive into if they are being chased. Coal Grunter, in their natural environment live in communities. They swim about snagy areas of the river in loose groups of about 3 or 4 fish, sometimes more. If a tasty morsel, perhaps a little shrimp, is spotted by one individual, it will move in for the attack. Once it has started to attack the shrimp the rest of the group will join in. The shrimp is quickly ripped into pieces which can be swallowed. Working together they are able to take on bigger prey.
The picture below show coal grunter in a community tank, with the appropriate species, and an appropriate aquascape. Note the 3 coal grunter right in the middle of the picture. These baby coal grunter were kept in this tank for over a year. The picture at the top of this page, shows one of these fish when we finally removed them. We did not remove them because they were becoming a problem but because they were need for a display in Cairns.
LEFT: Note the checkered pattern is very pronounced on the younger fish. As the fish get older, the pattern breaks up until it becomes more tweed-like. These fish are 8 weeks old.
