question about 15g high tank

[abomb]

would it be posible to keep a yellow lab or any african chiclids???? or shoudl i stick with the idea that i can only have shellies which i def would be pleased with. i am still in the process of deciding. the tank is

15 g high
sand substrate

still need to purchase some decorations but those will depend on the fish i decide on. wow i wish i wasnt in college cause then id have no limits on tank size due to a small living area. please help me decide. I want to set up a neat looking tank but am not sold on such common fish such as guppies danios ect..... chichlids are so much to look at.......

 

[Menagerie]

15 high has the same foot print as a 10 gal. I would not keep labs, mbuna, or peacocks, since they easily reach 4+" and that's not a ton of swimming room.

Shellies are fun, but will not ultize the upper area of the tank. I have Texas Holey rock in the 10 gal with my shellies and they will spend some time up at the top of the rock, but not much.

All the fish I'm thinking of right now are bottom dwellers. If I think of a small upper dweller that gets along with shellies, I will let you know.

 

[whitetiger_CJ]

for the top,I would suggest the butterfly fish, others that stay at the top include a halfbeak, or hatchet.

 

[Drake]

One neat fish you could keep in a 15 gallon tank is a figure-eight pufferfish. They are brackish so you would need to buy some kind of aquarium salt like Instant-Ocean and a hydrometer. Make sure it reads around 0.005.

 

[TankGirl]

You could also get a SA puffer, they are totally FW and one or possibly two could reside in a 15, I have often thought about doing that with my 15 high.

I think you could keep rosy barbs with shellies - many keep them with Africans, as well as dwarf neon rainbows (the latter will spend more time at the surface).

 

[Psyhampster]

one or possibly two could reside in a 15,

In all respect TG, I'm gonna hafta disagree here. Granted, they'd be happier with 2 in a 10(15H, same Footprint, as mentioned above), but a good general rule dor Dwarf Puffers is 2-3 gallons each, so you could do 3 alright, and 4 if you were careful.

 

[TankGirl]

I kept 4 dwarf (Malabar) puffers in this same 15gal for quite some time, with tiger barbs, until the barbs outgrew the tank, and depending on the gender 4 DP's would even be fine in a 10gal.

SA puffers get larger and are the type that don't mind conspecific company, so 2 could work in a 15, but nothing else would reside in that tank.

 

[Psyhampster]

ah, ok, we were talking about different Puffs... Sorry!