*Newbie to saltwater!* Help deciding future fish (and whole setup really)

[Thetruckstop_shelby]

Hello all, I 27 years old and as of yesterday new to the saltwater tank community. I have kept aggressive Central / South American cichlids, big cats, exotics etc for as many years as I can remember but never tried salt water. Yesterday I set up a reg. 20 gallon with a Aqua Clear 30, Top Fin “Argomax Sand” and Instant Ocean salt. Anddddd now

 

[beaslbob]

welcome to the marine side.

To me it is best to start the tank with macro algaes protected by a refugium. The refugium can be just a simple 1/4" sq plastic grid as a partition. 3" from glass with macros between grid and glass. add some side light also. that way the system will be blanced out and stabilized by the macro algae which are a form of plant life in "pretty" organized algae.

Wait a week Then add a common FW molly slowly acclimated to saltwater.

Don't add food for a week, then start feeding 1 flake per day.

Once you get the molly to live for a few weeks, you're ready for the more expensive marine only fish. If you add 2 females after the one week of no food added, you get babies which you may not want.

my .02