I am thinking about setting up my desk tank again. It is about a 1.5 gal. tank. Any suggestions for fish/plants/other would be greatly appriciated.
+1,Once again a 1.5 is too small for fish. Like said above these fish may be small, but NEED space. If oyur profiles list the min being around 5gal, more or less, but 1.5. Certainly schooling keeping a school of fish even if they're small is not going to work. Shrimp is the ONLY way you can go in a tank of this size. I you don't want to keep them then, don't keep anything.you have a few options...
you can pick 1 off this list:
school of 6 ember tetras - You are right that these fish stay quite small, but are schooling fish that deserve to be in groups, of 6+ so a small tank like a 1.5 cannot support a group of these fish. Neither can the filter. These small delicate fish are a bad choice for suh a small tank as it would be hard to hold a cycle in that tank and it is highly likely that the cycle will crash, resulting in the deaths of these fish, and they are also very active fish and I wouldn't keep these in anything short of 12 inches
school of 6 Rasbora merah, nana, or brigittae - these fish a quite delicate, and aren't suitible for any aquarium unless the person with them is willing to do more than usual water changes to keep these fish happy, and with a 1.5 gallon tank it Would be hard to have pristine water quality with the amount of fish that micro rasboras should be in groups of. And plus these fish are really active, and skittish so would be zooming around the tank at times. That's why the minimum tank length is 15 inches.
school of 5 pygmy chain loach* - I know very little about this species so I cannot comment on these
a single male dwarf gourami or honey gourami - dwarf gouramis, get 2.5 inches on average and due to inbreeding are susceptible to dwarf gourami disease, which they get in stressful, conditions, and when in a 1.5 gallon will create stressfull conditions for a dwarf gourami, and honeys are also fish that are territorial and like to roam a full tank, during mating season so should be in tanks of 10 gallons or more
a single male betta - bettas are known to be hardy fish, but still get to large to be placed in a 1.5 long term
trio (2 females 1 male) sparkling dwarf gourami - sparkling gouramis are delicate fish's and therefore requi pristine water quality so should be placed in a lightly stocked tank with lots of cover, and with 3 sparkling gouramis, it would be hard to keep the water clean, and the gouramis are territorial so should be in tanks like 15 inches+
trio (2 females 1 male) badis badis, or dario Dario* - Dario and badis, are really delicate fish that require mature, cycled tanks and pristine water quality, so are not suitable for a 1.5 gallon, because it would be hard to keep the water clean, they also setup territories and like to raom the territory so they require larger tanks,
2-3 male guppies or endlers - once again, too active for this tank