Shellie tank....

[MCHRKiller]

I have never kept nor had much interest in africans before...I have however decided that I need something different in my fish collection and I am looking at a small 10-20G tang. tank. Right now I am looking at the 20G as I would like a few other fish in the tank if that would be possible. Filtration will be a Fluval 206...I will have some plants in the tank but only a few. Substrate will be a mix of Flourite black, playsand, and aragonite sand. I will be using Seriyu stone and Escargot shells.

I definitely want a small group of Lamprologus ocellatus "gold". My main concern is what to go with them. I like Julidochromis transcriptus....just looking for some additional ideas on what to go with these guys. I will be putting in a juvie group of 6 F1 L.ocellatus "gold" if that helps.

[FinalJenemba]

Occies and Juli's work well, if they have the space. The non-shellie tangs really need allot more space then I first would have thought when I got into them. My favorite tank mate for them are calvus, they don't get very territorial and are pretty calm. They will eat babies though, if you wan't them to breed they should really be species only.

[MCHRKiller]

Im not really interested so much in breeding. I had also considered a single Calvus with them. I have a great semi local resource for F1 calvus....

[FinalJenemba]

Calvus are a great choice, I liked mine allot. Have you decided on a tank size? The smallest I would consider keeping them with other fish in is a 20L.

There's only three no-no's I have experienced so far. One, don't mix shellie species, they hate each other. Two, Juli's are nasty fish and will harass everything if you keep them singly, you need a few so they can harass each other, but watch out for my next tip. Three, don't let anything pair. Occies and other small shellies are different because they don't pair, they have more of a "free love" lifestyle. But hell hath no fury like a breeding pair of anything from Lake Tanganyika. Juli's, leleupi, and larger shellie neolamps will butcher everything in their path if they start breeding.

I have personally made all of these mistakes so you don't have to lol. Id probably just go with the calvus

[MCHRKiller]

Yay, something fun and challenging...what I have needed.

It is a standard 20G high....I have chosen the J.transcriptus as all reference I have seen states they top out less than 3" usually smaller. I will be getting 3 from a vendor. I also may get a single Neolamprologus helianthus "sunflower" mostly because I figure their temperament will keep the Julies somewhat in check.

[FinalJenemba]

The transcriptus sound like an excellent idea. I wish I had known about those when I first put mine together. You should really skip the helianthus though, they get really really nasty and its very likely it will kill everything when it hits maturity. A calvus would be allot safer. Don't worry there will be plenty of aggression to go around lol.

[MCHRKiller]

Good to know, thanks for the heads up. All reference states any tang is highly aggressive so it is difficult to judge just *how* aggressive the fish will actually be. I will get a calvus instead...they are really cool fish anyway.

Here is what I am looking at:

6 Gold ocellatus (4 from you, and 2 from blue grass aquatics)
3 J.transcriptus (blue grass aquatics)
1 Calvus (blue grass aquatics) debating between a black zambian and a white chaitika

[FinalJenemba]

Oh wow thats really funny, guess where I originally got the occies?

Your stock looks perfect.

[MCHRKiller]

lol, good to know they ship nice looking fish then. I went to their storefront outside Louisville last summer and it was epic. Ive been itching for an excuse to order something from them since.

[Taurus]

6 Gold ocellatus (4 from you, and 2 from blue grass aquatics)
3 J.transcriptus (blue grass aquatics)
1 Calvus (blue grass aquatics) debating between a black zambian and a white chaitika

Note to self to follow this thread closely.