Stocking for a 15 gallon

[the schwartz]

I was just wondering what some interesting or creative stocking would be in a 15 gallon reef?
Thanks!

 

[Anemone_Fanatic]

I'd stick to about 3 fish or less. As far as unique fish go, one of the less common basslets (swissguard, cave, assessor, etc) would make a good show fish. In a nano tank, it can also be interesting to do a species tank centered on a pair or small group of a single species. A trio of pajama cardinalfish or some pikeblennies would be good, for example.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

In my 15 gallon I keep a royal gramma, a chalk bass, a sharknose goby and a redhead goby. They all get along and they are all from Caribbean origin. These fish, with some rock flowers and soft corals are what I call my Caribbean softie tank.

An empty tank is a like a blank canvas , so many possibilities.

 

[Andreas' Reef]

You can never go wrong with fire fish (red, purple, helfrichi)

also a possum wrasse

 

[i cant think]

I was just wondering what some interesting or creative stocking would be in a 15 gallon reef?
Thanks!

I would personally stick to a pair of fish in a 15G tank. An FTS and plans for coral will be better to give some ideas for what will work better.
For example I have a 25G reef (3’x16”x1’) that’s SPS heavy and a 100G reef (4’x2’x2’) that’s a Mixed reef. So I can have different fish in each reef, in my 3’ I can have fish that may be a risk to soft coral whilst in my 4’ reef I can have fish that may risk SPS coral as I won’t have quite as many species but larger colonies of them.

 

[the schwartz]

I would personally stick to a pair of fish in a 15G tank. An FTS and plans for coral will be better to give some ideas for what will work better.
For example I have a 25G reef (3’x16”x1’) that’s SPS heavy and a 100G reef (4’x2’x2’) that’s a Mixed reef. So I can have different fish in each reef, in my 3’ I can have fish that may be a risk to soft coral whilst in my 4’ reef I can have fish that may risk SPS coral as I won’t have quite as many species but larger colonies of them.

It’s going to be mainly softies

 

[the schwartz]

You can never go wrong with fire fish (red, purple, helfrichi)

also a possum wrasse

How do you like the wrasse?

 

[the schwartz]

In my 15 gallon I keep a royal gramma, a chalk bass, a sharknose goby and a redhead goby. They all get along and they are all from Caribbean origin. These fish, with some rock flowers and soft corals are what I call my Caribbean softie tank.

An empty tank is a like a blank canvas , so many possibilities.

Is your royal gramma active or does it kinda hide

 

[dedragon]

royal grammas are hiders, that is a good stocking for a 15 gallon though. These tanks either can use 4 very tiny fish like that or 1 pair of clownfish and usually 1 other fish very tiny fish.

 

[JoJosReef]

Can't go wrong with a tailspot blenny for endless entertainment.

 

[i cant think]

It’s going to be mainly softies

I would go for either of these personally;
Pseudocheilinops ataenia,
Wetmorella tanakai,
Discordipinna griessingeri (pair),
Stonogobiops dracula (pair),
Acanthemblemaria macrospilus (trio or squad)

These are just a few ideas obviously there are others out there though

 

[Andreas' Reef]

How do you like the wrasse?

They can be a little timid but very beautiful. Once it gets used to the tank it will swim around, it also has a unique swimming pattern.

 

[dedragon]

I think this tank might be a little too small for any wrasse tbh

 

[i cant think]

I think this tank might be a little too small for any wrasse tbh

The Pseudocheilinops and Wetmorella genera are both genera of ‘nano’ wrasses that do better in smaller low active tanks than they do in high active tanks (this is if they’re added closer to the end).

 

[dedragon]

true I was thinking about 6 line wrasse, Pseudocheilinus, if they can find the other wrasses near them they are better usually just more expensive so I tend not to recommend to beginners.
Also why is the latin genus for both so similar, lol it is just confusing

 

[i cant think]

true I was thinking about 6 line wrasse, Pseudocheilinus, if they can find the other wrasses near them they are better usually just more expensive so I tend not to recommend to beginners.
Also why is the latin genus for both so similar, lol it is just confusing

Paeudocheilinus is the much more aggressive side - I avoid recommending these to beginners. The Pseudocheilinops genus tend to be the same in terms of hardiness and remain much more peaceful.

The Scientific names are so similar due to Pseudocheilinops ataenia used to be believed to be in the Pseudocheilinus genus however they have now noticed they’re two separate genera that are close in relation.

One misconception is Latin names and scientific names are the same - Latin Names tend to be just a couple scientific names as Scientific names can be Greek, Latin and other ‘ancient’ languages.