need help

DaveK

Well-Known Member
When you are using any tank, especially s small tank, you need to take into consideration the displacement of all the rock and sand. By that time your 20 gal tank is hoilding only about 15 gal of water at best.

Typically in a SW system, you want about 1 inch of fish per 5 gal of water, so for a 20 gal tank, you can keep about 3 inches of fish total. So you want to choose fish that are small and you want to choose fish where each one is a real gem and you want to choose fish that tend to be active and no hiding all the time. For a 20 gal tank your looking at 2 or 3 fish at max so choose carefully.

My personal choices would be from the following -
Royal gramma or other related species
Any of the small gobies except the mandarin gobies
Any of the firefish

You could consider the various damsels, but they often get very nasty and not something you want with other fish.

When choosing keep in mind the tank size requirements for the fish. Most SW fish need a tak a lot larger than 20 gal, so you don't want to get them despite what the guy at your LFS says.
 
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