Starting my first saltwater tank

[Bear44]

anyone know whats the best salinity level?

i heard 1.022 will be hard for parasites to attack fishes

[sphelps]

A good salinity would be 34ppt at 78 degrees which is 1.024 SG. You can go higher or lower by 2ppt if you chose but you won't notice a difference and aiming for the middle will give you a little more tolerance since hydrometers and refractometers aren't always that accurate.

A deep sand bed will do nothing for you in that tank except reduce your volume. I would aim for a max of 1" depth. Setting up something for denitrification in a 20 gallon isn't worth while as water changes will be cheaper and much more effective.

Rock looks fine, it's not a real science so really whatever looks good to you will work.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Bear44

anyone know whats the best salinity level?

i heard 1.022 will be hard for parasites to attack fishes

You'll have to go much lower for this to be effective which isn't good long term.

[intarsiabox]

Welcome to the hobby! It sounds like you are off to a good start. As far as sand beds go I would only put a shallow one in or none at all. I have a 25g reef without a sand bed and it doesn't take long for pieces of rock and rubble to start covering the bottom. I chose to go no sand bed on this tank because wastes don't collect and decompose as readily and any tank I have went bare bottom has never had any type of algae or cyno issues.