Fish for a 20gal

[josh f]

I have a 20H tank with LR and alot of filtration and I need some inhabitants, what kind of fish do you think would do well, how long could a dwaf lion be ok in it? I am going to set up a 55 or 75, or 90... money permitting, so I could move him later, but I don't know, if anyone could think of some cool combinations of fish, for the bottom middle and top, I'd be greatly appreciative!

 

[pufferlover]

I keep no more then 3 fish in each of my 3 20's and they are what I call grow out tanks. All the fish are babies waiting for new homes. A 20 is hard to keep any number of salt fish as the surface area is not great enough to sustain them.

 

[tangs_in_pacifica]

I've had good luck with two Oscellaris and a Royal Gramma in a 20L. That's about as much as I'd push it.

 

[josh f]

So, what you mean by surface area, is that there isn't enough oxygen in the water? If I aerate it more could there be, it does get alot of aeration, there is a Biowheel 125 and skilter 250 on it, which run 375gph through the bio and chem filters, and I have a 3ft counter current skimmer on it that runs about 200gph, and 2 powerheads, powersweeps, that keep the water moving, do you not think there's enough aeration?

 

[pufferlover]

Well you seemed to have handled that ok. The other drwback I see is that a 20 just does not give fish much room to move (unless they are small slow movers say like a Mandarin. Don't get me wrong I like 20's for temporary or HT or QT use but like many others I want fish then more fish then more (you get the idea) so in the past I have just gone ahead and got bigger tanks but even then I still have more fish then space.With what you are running I don't think you have a O2 worry just a what will fit that tank. I always thought about taking a 20 and doing a mini reef with a few small fish and lots of live rock going up the back but just haven't gotton around to that yet.

 

[josh f]

Yeah that's what I'm going for, my girlfriend says Lemonpeel angels, but they'll get too big, I could allways move it to a bigger tank, but, I think chromises would be cool, blue or green, something small, don't they stay small? and what about small fish, a bleenie on the bottom, chromises in the middle and maybe something that'd stay at the top? I dunno, lemme know what you think.

 

[slk3599]

Josh,
I have a lemonpeel angel, maroon clown, and a 6 line wrasse in my 29 gallon. Been that way since last October and all are doing fine. If you have live rock for the lemonpeel it should be just fine. They only get to about 3".

 

[grouperhead]

im about to start up a 20 gallon of my own. right now the fish im looking at are tomato clown/seabe clown/perc, cherub pygmy angel, neon gobie, six line wrasse, and some pseudochromis. you might be able to get a royal gramma in there but it would be a tight fit. chromis would be good. the cherub pygmy is the only angel i would go for. in my tank im pretty sure its going to be 1 cherub pygmy angel and 3-4 neon gobies. im mainly doing it for the inverts because i cant have any in my 75 agressive. good luck, bo

 

[i3luedragon]

You can add more then 3 fish to the tank if you wish. As long as they are about 1-2" in length. The best way to add more then 3 fish is to upgrade your filter power. So if you are doing a 20 gallon, you should get a canister filter that can filter around 50-100 gallons. You may have to customize the intake tube, because for the larger ones, they assume you have a bigger tank so you might have to shorten it. Also 20-40 lbs of live rock will be a must for low maintenence of biological filtering. You definitely need a skimmer to get additional pollution out of a small 20 gallon.
I've tried a 20 gallon this way for about 3 months with about 6 fish and they are still doing great. You can cheat a little if you have lots of rock for the fish to move in, and upgrade to overpower filtering. Oh and get live sand.
Before I forget, this only works if the fish you have are very compatible. Since it's a small space, if you mix shy with even mildly aggressive, you will get into a lot of feeding problems.

 

[josh f]

Thanks for the advice, I'm still not sure of what to go with, but I guess I'll do some research and let you guys know!

 

[lionfish]

LiionFish says.......
Grouperhead, are you serious? You're gonna put 5 or more fish in that small of a tank. I had only 2 fish in my 20 gallon because all the fish would have terrible dispuutes. I would only put that many fish in a tank of 35 gallons or more. The Dwarf Lion could not fit in there because they really need a bigger tank no matter their size. I wouldn't put more than 3 fish no mattter the size of the fish in a 20 gallon. That is why I was so shocked that Grouperhead would put that many fish in that small of a tank. Thats just askin for trouble with too many fish.

 

[grouperhead]

if you think about it thats only around 5" of fish. 3 gobies of 1" and a cherub pygmy angel of 2". with about 20 lb of lr and some good filtration this imo would be ok. im mainly doing this to try my shot at breeding the gobies b/c i heard they were easy to breed and i might want to breed other fish in the future. i can see how you might think its over stocked, but i think it should be ok. bo

 

[josh f]

Well, I was thinking maybe 3 small fish, but nice ones, herbivores that don't look alike, wouldn't that cut down on disputes a bit? I am setting up another 20gal as we.. type?... but I think it will be dedicated to seahorses, I made a rack to stack the two up and have a 10gal sump at the bottom, So what kind of fish would get along and not fight too much, is the Lemonpeel ok? and maybe two other small fish, a blennie maybe? And I am going to set up a larger tank, I got a 90gal, but I haven't decided what I want to do with it yet.