Fish for 1.5ft tank

[uglyduckling]

My current 1.5ft tank has small school of golden tetra and ember terra, RCS and some algae eaters. It is heavily planted, with temp ranges between 27-29C.
I'm now looking for a pair of colorfull/interesting fish to scare those tetra and get them schooling. I dont like too aggressive one like beta. Thinking of either ram or apistogramma but afraid they will attack my adult shrimps (eating small shrimlets is ok).
Please give me your suggestion, thanks everyone!


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[Dscheng]

Forget about RAM and Apistogramma. They will hunt and eat your adult shrimp.

[tetrakid]

1.5ft tank and heavily planted is not suitable for schooling tetras because they don't have enough space to swim around.
Actually in such a small tank, they are 'schooling' all the time by remaining where they are.

[tetrakid]

Forget about RAM and Apistogramma. They will hunt and eat your adult shrimp.

Thats why shrimps and fish must not be mixed in the same tank unless they are confirmed the 'friend-friend' and 'can get along' type of fish.
Puffers, Rams and Apistos definitely no-no.

[Dscheng]

All the fish will eat the shrimplet(New born like a small dot). Even guppy / Tetra sometime will attack the adult shrimp.
The only friendly fish is OTO, maybe pygmy cory / Panda loach.

As for me, my 2FT tank is heavily planted and a lot of hiding place. So far so good, still managed to breed cherry. Below are my list of fish and shrimp.

Fish
Tetra, running nose, guppy, rasbora, Pymgy cory, oto, and panda loach.

Shrimp
Cherry, CRS, yamato, malayan.

[tetrakid]

Can show your fish tank picture here? I don't keep shrimps at all.

[uglyduckling]

My shrimp still breeds and the population expands quickly as being kept with the tetras.

Just that those tetras swim randomly everywhere in the tank so I need a pair of territorial fish to scare them and also to help control shrimp population.

I did try Puffer before lol ) that cute looking guy was actually a pro fin-nipper. It tooks me hours to lure him out of my tank.

Anyone has tried gourami with rcs before? Is it ok?

I'll upload the pic of my tank tonight.


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[Dscheng]

Gourami is a shrimp hunter too. I tried before, i throw a few malayan shrimp into my gourami tank. They chase the shrimp like mad. Definitely no no.

[fireblade]

when you want them to school, use a pincer to chase them a bit and they should school...
for sucha small tank getting slightly bigger fish will not be nice and hunt your shrimps down.

[Emperios]

I had Indostomus paradoxus (aka armoured sickleback) and Nannostomus unifasciatus (aka one-lined pencil fish) in my 45x30x30 tank =D
Only the pencil fish can sometimes be aggressive with each other. The armoured sickleback is a cute & shy fish.
I would have kept 10 armoured sickleback if I had planned earlier =X
They don't attack shrimps too, but might eat shrimplets.

[Dscheng]

Can show your fish tank picture here? I don't keep shrimps at all.

Haha paiseh to show mine la, my tank is ugly, lazy to trim the plant too, ahah.

[limz_777]

I think no point getting a bigger fish to chase, after a while once the they settle down, back to square one, they stop schooling again

[uglyduckling]

Picture of my tank:
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1432565224.796602.jpg
Waiting for narrow leaf fern and bolbitis to cover the background
Ember tetras are not in deep orange yet, just added them in few weeks ago.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1432565783.234493.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1432566910.371453.jpg


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[tetrakid]

Haha paiseh to show mine la, my tank is ugly, lazy to trim the plant too, ahah.

Wa very nice and tall tank. I also like very tall tanks. So good.

With so tall tank, how you can reach the bottom?

For such nicely done plants, just add a piece of black corrugated plastic board from Popular Book Store for the background will make it look even more super.

[Anders247]

How many US gallons is it, or liters?

[Dscheng]

Wa very nice and tall tank. I also like very tall tanks. So good.

With so tall tank, how you can reach the bottom?

For such nicely done plants, just add a piece of black corrugated plastic board from Popular Book Store for the background will make it look even more super.

Not high at all, it is the normal 60x30x36cm (60L) 2ft tank. Maybe the camera effect la.

[tetrakid]

Not high at all, it is the normal 60x30x36cm (60L) 2ft tank. Maybe the camera effect la.

Hahaha, I see like so high like that, lol.

[fireblade]

think your fishes are very comfortable...
don't add anything to stress them... :P
if you want them to school, maybe get 1 type of fish and that's it.

[tetrakid]

think your fishes are very comfortable...
don't add anything to stress them... :P
if you want them to school, maybe get 1 type of fish and that's it.

It's hard for humans to understand fish's psychology, lol.

[Urban Aquaria]

Yeah, i do notice that in tanks with a lot of different fishes, they tend to jumble together... the usual schooling fishes also tend to just swim around on their own.

Based on my watching of schooling fish behaviour, i think one of the reasons why fishes like rummy nose tetras school is because they are naturally scared to be alone, so they must always keep in the line of sight of another fish of a similar kind, which encourages them to school to stay together... but if they are put together in a tank with a lot of fishes, they can always see another fish just a few cm away, so they feel safe and don't need to keep following a school anymore.

I guess in a tank with lots of fishes, in a sense it's like they are already in a big mixed school that just happens to to fill the entire tank.

So if you want to see the schooling fishes school, probably either get a larger tank (preferably longer one), or reduce the number of fishes so that there is more space and distance between each fish... that could give them a natural reason to swim together to avoid losing sight of each other.