Another 15 Gallon Tank At Planning Stage

My business partner wants me to set up a fish tank in our new office, knowing I am a "fish nut" as one of my ex-colleague used to call me.

It will be a low budget 15 US gallon (standard 2 feet) tank with nothing expensive and fancy. Initially, I thought I wanted a black water tank which could be quite simple and easy to set up but the "black water" freaked out my business partner. I don't blame him. Majority of the people cannot stand a dark looking fish tank with dried leaves, dark sand and driftwood in the water. To me this is an art by simulating the nature.

Then I thought of a cichlid tank but most of of the cichlids are too huge or too aggressive to fit into a 15 gallon tank. Shell dwellers are too costly (the last time I checked, it was RM50 per fish). I could not keep Apistogramma alive long enough based on my past experience. So, cichlid tank is now out of my consideration.

Planted tank is my favourite but it will be too costly to call it a low budget tank. The cost of a lighting set is the main killer, even if I go for NPT (natural planted tank) without canister filter, CO2, chiller/fan, using plants donated from my existing tanks, etc.

Now, my plan is to have a non-planted tank with a mixture of idea from cichlid tank and black water tank. Basically, I will use rocks, sand and driftwood. The driftwood will form a structure that looks like tree roots in the water. Rocks will be piling up to form a slope where the tree roots attach to the rocks. I guess only myself can imagine how the tank looks like as of now.

So far I have only purchased some second hand rocks. The rest of the items are still being hunted now.