back into hobby 20 long stocking

I'd have fewer species of schooling fish and a larger school instead. I.e. either cardinal tetras or the rasporas. I hink CPD are tiny if I remember correctly so probably in danger of being eaten by the rams or gourami or atleast kept so scared by them they'll hide all the time so you don't see them.

Do like 1 big school and 1 smaller becuase keep in mind your stocking a 20gal and you cant put every fish in the ocean in it. The ram is a great idea though, absolutely beautiful fish, and gourami's are also awsome fish, they really have a great personality, look for the most lively fish when buying them because that will probably e the healthiest fish

he is what i'm thinking now
1 ram
1 groumis
5 hatchets
7 carinal tetras

That sounds like a fun tank and should work well.

do i need a pair of rams?

imo you should do ten of each schooling fish

i'd do at least ten of the cardinal tetras. and be careful with the dwarf gourami and ram, they can both be aggressive- i've never heard of them combined but it's probably been done.

I don't think you need to do a pair of rams, if you can get an actual pair then that would work ok but just putting together a male and female fish doesn't mean that they'll pair up.

If they don't pair up odds are that the more dominant fish will harass the less dominant one quite a lot. A 20 L has a good sized footprint for the amount of gallons it has so it might work out that they'd stick to separate corners esp with enough plants and decorations to break up lines of sight but I'm not sure that's worth the hassle.

I'm just gonna go with one
how dows this stocking look
1 golden ram
1 sunset honey groumis
5 cardinals
5 hatchets