Shelldweller Tank?

[Ripley]

I was planning on setting up a Shelldweller tank, but I was just wondering what species would be best to go with and how many. It's a ten gallon tank. I'm hoping to breed them as I have bred lots of other cichlids, but wanted to try out these guys.

 

[Ripley]

No?

 

[dthoffsett]

I've never kept a shelly tank, although a couple of people on here do. The best I can do is to give you a couple of links to check out. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will be able to post soon. I'm not too sure if a 10gal is large enough to keep anything besides the shelldwellers. You might be able to get away with a few upper level fish like hatchet fish, however, shellies prefer a pretty high PH, so I don't know if it would work.

http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/cookie_cutter_10g.php
http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/shel...ller_corner.php

 

[WaterBender1995]

shellies are VERY territorial, there are some that are less aggressive but I dont usually recomend a 10 gallon for them anyway, they need room to develop their shellbeds. a 20 long would be more applicable.

 

[stang1]

You may get away with keeping one pair of shelldwellers in that size tank but that would be about it. You'll find that once they start breeding, they don't stop!
I have a 48G tank with 2 mating pairs of Multis and they've produced at least 50 fry between them in the last 3 months. Depending on what you plan on doing with the babies, you could get overrun with them in no time at all.