I think a 20G tank will be a little to small for any shark you can find at your LFS. But you can have a really nice set up of a few community fish in that tank. Do you have any fish in it yet? Have you completed the cycling process?
Cheers for the reply, tank and equipment arriving friday, Cant wait! lol ,
so it will be a while before i purchase any fish, but would like to put some freshwater Invertebrates in there, or something along that line, obviously i would put some fish in aswell, any suggestions
Tell you the truth; don't get any fish until you have cycled your tank. You can set it up, add what ever decor you wish. There are 2 ways to do the cycling. ONE and I don't like this way is get a couple of those feeder fish you see for like 29 cents, or you can add PURE ammonia to your tank everyday. If you do not know what the cycling process is I will give you a couple of links you can read. What it is real fast... When fish poop is makes ammonia, witch is deadly to your fish. Then the ammonia gets turned into Nitrites witch is also deadly to your fish, and then lastly Nitrites gets turned into Nitrates witch is deadly to your fish also, but to a certain period of time. This is why you do Water Changes. I never let me Nitrates get above 20PPM.
I suggest you get a water test kit. I use API freshwater test kit, it is about 30$. Don't get the test strips, get the test drops.. The strips are always off. Anything else you need do be afraid to ask. O YA... READ, READ AND READ SOME MORE
for fish, a dwarf indian puffer fish would be cool, although sites say that the minimum tank size is 30 they are only 1 inch long at the most so them and soem bumblebee fish would be cool... live plants would also make it much nicer. but it might be a little bit more if you want live plants :P
Cheers Mates, ive just into this, although i had a Marine 6ftx2Ftx2Ft tank in my bedroom when i was about 7, with Lobsters in, my Dad was a local fisherman, and kept hem as a hobby, and the only place the tank wold fit was my bedroom! wierd childhood pets i know! id like to set up the same sort of Marine tank on day, as i live in a little seaside town in wales
UK. Cheers James
Mike those puffers get to be 3". I have a Green Spotted Puffer and he gets to be 6 3/4" unless i put him in saltwater when he is still young. I would not recommend a puffer. They are hard to take care of and have special needs that must be met. I am just now finding this out. I would keep some schooling fish in a tank that size. Maybe some rummy-nose tetra, cherry barbs, neons, cardinal tetras, cory cats such as false julii's, albino, or elegans. I would make sure they stay under 2" max size.. All of those fish selections will do fine together but I would do this...
yeah i have 5 serpae tetras and they are the life of my tank, just swimming side to side and they only get 1.5"-2:. ive also thought about getting a few dwarf gouramis, or some hatchet fish and maybe a few more tetras. but look into this set up
5 serpae tetras, 3 hatchet fish, 3 red or blue dwarf gouramis, and 3 cory cats
last time i had a 20g tank i had some Lamprolongus Ocellatus golds... two pairs would make it very interesting... but they need sand substrate and alot of shells... i ended up having a huge colony of they... about 30+ in that tank...
Is it a 20 long? You can put a few more fish in those than the 20 highs. I have always wanted a tank full of cardinal tetras or neons. They really are amazing in large numbers. You could fit 20 in there nicely. The cardinals are a bit fancier, with red that follows the entire length of the body. Make sure you have a super low pH around 6ish for the cardinals I believe they do best in that.
Neon and Cardinal Tetras are really nice as a school. They're very vulnerable to being attacked by other fish though, so keep that in mind. I had some Ghost shrimp and the big one wiped out all my Cardinals at night when they were sleaping. I had tetras with Ghost shrimp before and they did OK. I think the problem was that the tetras didn't have enough time to learn about the ghost shrimp, and that if I were to start with baby shrimp there probably wouldn't be a problem.
