20 Gallon Long fish recomendations - help my lil brother please :)

[landmineyouth]

Okay so after seeing all the tanks and months of questions from me, my lil brother (13) has decided to set up a tank. I got him a 20 gallong long tank w/ black tahitian moon sand and 1 lace rock. Its been filtered for a week now, and hes doing freshwater... he wants to get a fish that is going to get some what big, but can still live comfortably in his tank... he really wants a bala shark, just 1, but im not sure how well it'd do over time.. can you guys recomend something or confirm/deny my thoughts of his bala shark plan?

keep in mind he doesnt want to put stuff like neons or betta's or guppies or angels or etc in this... looking more towards 1 main showcase fish. Thanks.

 

[CAPOREGIME]

Im pretty sure Balas get too big to be comfortable in a 20g, but I may be totally wrong. They hit about 15" or so.
I say 3-5 Tiger Barbs would be cool. Nice looking fish and always moving
Good Luck

 

[stevea6221]

how about a pair of dwarf cichlids like kribensis or rams depending on what ph your local water is or he could get a few dwarf puffer fish which are quite interesting to watch but can be quite aggressive

 

[fishnutham]

theres not a lot of choices for a 20 g from the options you left sounds to me that you want to keep a 15" fish in a 24" tank not a good idea .
If I had a spare 20g long I would go with a nice mid sized plec somethig interesting and toss a few zebra danios in as dither fish even a plec that would outgrow that tank would be a good choice it will take many years to see growth and you upgrade tanks by then a couple peices of bog wood for the plec to munch on and research the feeding needs of the speices first and you would have a nice display tank.

 

[JardiniBoy]

There's another thread currently running on the African Butterflyfish. It seems like a cool little predator for a small tank.

More info here:

http://www.exotictropicals.com/encyclo/fresh/miscellaneous/butterfly.php

JB

 

[Pout]

Here are some Recommedations from another site.

HERE LOOK HERE!!!!!!!

Pout

 

[Vitaliy]

Definitely a pair of Convict Cichlids; cute, aggressive, and breed easily.

 

[riggs]

I second Vitaliy's recommendation of Convicts. They'll be plenty active and are definitely interesting to watch.

 

[yourmylunch]

in a 20 long you could put a pair of 6" cichlids just keep up the water changes

ad a little salt and put a puffer in there it will eat from your hand in no time

its hard to fing somethong thats not to big but is not so common

crayfish

or a big blue crab they do live in fresh water alot of the time i have caught them alongside texas and salvinni cichlids

 

[guppy]

A 20g tank is only 12 1'2" wide so if you get a very active fish it should be no more than 6" as an adult but an inactive one could be up to 8", an eel could be larger. If you want just a single centerpiece fish avoid things like balas or congo tetras. For a neat small predator that I think pike top minnows are available in Florida, or for one larger predator that gets to 8" and has habits that would alow it to be kept in a 20G you could get a Gangetic leaffish (Nandus nandus), they are usually slow moving and have huge mouths.