Recieved New Tank, No Idea What To Do With It!

[Kaitie09]

I was recently given a 20 gallon Marineland® BioWheel® LED Aquarium Kit as a birthday present. I've have fish for some time, mainly bettas. Currently I have a Marina 5 gallon tank with a male betta, an apple snail, a zebra snail, and 5 ramshorn snails.I also have 2 anubis plants in there. I've just started with live plants a couple months ago, so I'm thinking I'll stick with low light, hardy plants for the new tank.
 
I would love to create an aquarium that looks natural. In the past I had wanted driftwood, but my tanks have been to small. I'm thinking java ferns and anubis plants mostly. What I'm trying to figure out is what to put in with my betta. I've had platys before and did not like that they were a live bearing species. I'm thinking a school of tetras. My betta is fairly docile, mostly spending his days hiding out around the plants or in his betta log. He also accepted the snails right away, only checking them out once and then being done with them. My idea would be to set up the tank and filter it for a while, then add the new fish, and then add the betta, so the others have already established themselves.
 
So my questions are:
 
Do you think tetras would be a good in the tank?
 
Are there any other hardy, lowlight live plants you can think of that would do well?
 
Should I use gravel, sand, or a soil mixture?
 
What would I feed my fish if I have two difference species in there?
 
 
 

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Java fern would do very well in that tank also.
 
 
Tetras is a very broad scope of fish.  Some grow rather large, others are much smaller.  Sticking to the smaller varieties (2 inches and under) would work very well.
 
 
The substrate question really comes down to the fish you plant to keep.  Some fish prefer sand, while others don't really have a preference.
 
 
 
If I had a 20 gallon like this, I'd go with 6+ smaller cories (<2 inches) and a shoal of midwater fish like: Trigonostigma hengeli, Trigonostigma espei, Trigonostigma heteromorpha (Harlequin rasboras), Rummynose tetra, bloodfin tetra, etc.  These are nice peaceful fish.  I'd also consider a trio of honey gourami at some point as well.  
 
8 C. panda
12 T. hengeli
3 Honey gourami
 
 
That would be my final stocking list for this tank... As far as food goes... flake or floating pellets would be good for the mid-waters, while sinking pellets (shrimp or other meaty foods) would be good for the cories.  Cories are not herbivores, they are primarily carnivorous scavengers.

 

[frapadoodle]

I like the stocklist, perhaps though switch the pandas for cory hasbrosus, dainty cory, and bump the numbers to 10.
Either way, if going with corys go with a sand substrate.