Semi-new keeper lots of questions

bettaluver said:

ok.. so i have a 20 gallon aquarium that i want to stock with a nice varity of fish. i like color alot, and movement, but i am also thinking of either a sandy bottom asian, or amazon biotype. i would not know how to do either, as there isnt much info on the net about it.
some of my questions are:
1. with a sandy bottom, is it still possible to grow live plants? I use sand in my 30 gallon heavily planted tank and I never had any problems.

2. tips/ideas/howto's on setting up biotypes.(was thinking of amazon with vaious barbs. or asian with sandy bottom) Look up pictures of the biotope you want, lke of the amazon river, and you should get a clear direction in what you want the tank to look like.

3. if i want to have a few live plants, what is nessisary to keep them green? do i HAVE to use CO2? id reeeaaalllyy rather avoid it if possible. what about ferts? how do they work? Basically the only thing you need to do to grow most plants is to put enough light over them, CO2 and Ferts just make them grow faster and cleaner. What determins the amount of light you have is to take the total amount of watts from your fluorescent fixture and divide that by how many gallons your tank is, resulting in Watts per gallon. As a semi new keeper, I would aim for 1.5-2 WPG. If you want to, you can dose Seachem's Excel in your tank.

4. is cleaning sand hard? would the gravel vac suck it up? Nope, all you have to do is to float the vac above the sand to suck up the lighter poop, but not the sand.

VERY roughly i was leaning tward somthing like
school of tiger barbs For a 20 gallon tank, I wouldn't recomend these guys, they can tend to get aggressive.
pearl grmouri Good choice, they are very peaceful
3 kulhi loaches You'll need to bump this up to 6, they like having company.
4-5 Otos They aren't from asia, they're from the amazon.

Since Tiger barbs are out, can I suggest A school of 6 Harlequin Rasboras? They look good and still hold the whole Asian Biotope theme.

any other stocking tips, or advice is taken to heart =))
thanks!!

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Damodred said:

If you have a big enough school, the problem becomes having that school in a 20g with other fish. They can/will get ~3" long. You'd need a minimum of 6.

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