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Whats the best option for a 20g tank??

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aquariu ... hp?t=92700
I have found this quite helpful

Thanks, deff a useful chart. I just set up 20g long with marine sand with texas holy rock, driftwood mix. Looking into plants like anubis to put in there. Debating on pleco, tetra tank or african cichlids.

Marine sand tends to include carbonates which make the water hard fairly hard and buffers it to an alkaline pH. This type of water is fairly rare in tropical environments except for the African rift lakes. Based on your substrate choice I'd go for rift lake cichlids. Plecs and tetras tend to come from neutral to slightly acidic habitats. Certain hardy plecs don't really mind, though.

Driftwood lowers the PH, usually mine is consistent around 7.0... I would do more to lower or raise based on species needs. I just love plecos and wish I had my 55g setup to have more options. War Eagle!

A couple of things to think about. The tannins in the wood will eventually stop buffering the water, and would need to be changed at the first sign of the pH going up. It's not impossible, but the substrate choice and holey rock both will tend to increase pH and TDS rather quickly.

At the same time, chemical treatment to maintain the pH is only going to cause the rockwork to dissolve faster. If you can manage to maintain the pH, such as with a controller, the TDS is still going to increase very rapidly as it tries to maintain equilibrium within the system.

I can certainly understand a fascination with plecos, but any serious effort with these fish is going to require a change in the decoration/substrate in order to be successful over the long term.

Larry

StraightAddicted wrote:Thanks, deff a useful chart. I just set up 20g long with marine sand with texas holy rock, driftwood mix. Looking into plants like anubis to put in there. Debating on pleco, tetra tank or african cichlids.

I know you already have your tank set, but if you're interested in plecos & tetras, you could swap out your marine sand for something that won't raise the pH -- there are substrates that look quite similar - some by Caribsea (Moonlight Sand or Crystal River): http://www.caribsea.com/itempage_freshw ... uarium.htm They look great & won't raise your pH to something inappropriate for S. American fish like the plecos & tetras. You could swap out the Texas Holey rock for lava rock, slate, etc.

It stinks to have to change things once you've already started, but better now than once you already have fish living in a situation that won't let them thrive. One thing to remember is you will constantly be battling your pH to keep it from getting too high -- it's not a "once & done" fix. And pH fluctuations like that could get pretty stressful for the fish.

I am not a Cichlid person at ALL, but just a thought: a 20 gallon tank is pretty small for Cichlids, given how big they get, this tank would be pretty cramped quarters, and the fish might not thrive, especially as some are quite territorial): the Cichlid Forums may be a good resource for you if you're interested in these guys: http://www.cichlidforums.com/showthread ... -Malawians

Best of luck with whatever you choose -- just have learned (the hard way) that it's best to start with an optimal plan ... there will be plenty of unexpected or unavoidable problems later
Amanda