if I were setting up a 20-or-less gallon, what I would do:
1. 30 lbs live rock. good grade.
2. 25 lbs medium grade aragonite sand.
3. 10 lbs specimen rocks--mushrooms, buttons, etc, discosomas and plain green buttons. Can go in as soon as cycled, but watch your ammonia and nitrate.
4. fish of the same scale. For my showpiece fish I'd have
a) either a yellow watchman or a firefish (take jump precautions with the firefish). And I'd prefer the watchman.
b) a yellowheaded jawfish
c) a couple of stonogobiops nematodes (highfin striped gobies)
d) a pep shrimp
e) one medium nassarius snail
f) 10 small hermits (scarlets)
g) 10 mixed trochus, turbo, cerith snails.
h) maybe some pumping xenia or kenya tree once your tank gets good and stable.
Everything is to scale, no fish has his nose up against the glass all the time. Other interesting fish on that scale: a ton of varieties of gobies, draculas, trimmas, clown gobies, etc. Plenty to watch, and in a healthy tank where everything is to scale, there's no great bioload since your largest fish is a detritus-eater (if you go with the watchman), and the little guys aren't shy about coming out of their burrows.
What are other suggestions for a 20-g-or-smaller?
1. 30 lbs live rock. good grade.
2. 25 lbs medium grade aragonite sand.
3. 10 lbs specimen rocks--mushrooms, buttons, etc, discosomas and plain green buttons. Can go in as soon as cycled, but watch your ammonia and nitrate.
4. fish of the same scale. For my showpiece fish I'd have
a) either a yellow watchman or a firefish (take jump precautions with the firefish). And I'd prefer the watchman.
b) a yellowheaded jawfish
c) a couple of stonogobiops nematodes (highfin striped gobies)
d) a pep shrimp
e) one medium nassarius snail
f) 10 small hermits (scarlets)
g) 10 mixed trochus, turbo, cerith snails.
h) maybe some pumping xenia or kenya tree once your tank gets good and stable.
Everything is to scale, no fish has his nose up against the glass all the time. Other interesting fish on that scale: a ton of varieties of gobies, draculas, trimmas, clown gobies, etc. Plenty to watch, and in a healthy tank where everything is to scale, there's no great bioload since your largest fish is a detritus-eater (if you go with the watchman), and the little guys aren't shy about coming out of their burrows.
What are other suggestions for a 20-g-or-smaller?