BigRed came up with just about all the fish I would suggest for a 8g. lol
The two clowns will be WAYYY too much for an 8g unfortunately. I had an evolve and had planned on clown gobies, a yellow watchman and a pistol shrimp. They do have an awesome bond so its not just boring little fish. lol
I would also concentrate on inverts, like instead of the blue legged hermits everyone gets maybe get some of the more expensive ones, like the halloween crabs or the red legged guys, they run about $3 each. Then some shrimp, i would def have a fire shrimp and at least one other shrimp, maybe a cleaner or even peppermints.
Just stay away from the coral banded ones, nasty little buggers. A sponge crab is also super cool if you can find one. Every time I have ordered one they have not shipped for one reason or another. So there are plenty of really neat things to do with the small tank. Just go slow, the water parameters in such a small tank can swing really quickly. Thats the only thing I would worry about.
oh, and also, if you are using a swing arm to test salinity I would reccomend strongly getting a refractometer. Majorly more accurate than the swing arm, about $30 on ebay. With the tank being so small the salinity can swing in a heartbeat.