It is tricky to find the right fish though, and many of the imposters labeled as siamese algae eaters in stores are aggressive toward other fish and will not eat algae at all. Amazon has a lot of kits available that give you almost everything you need to get started including a tank, filter, heater, etc. Without a doubt, the goldfish has been the most abused fish in the hobby. Being one of the first fish housed in captivity, the goldfish is the result of genetic mutation. No one is exactly certain of the origins of the goldfish, but they are a part of the carp family along with koi. Most goldfish if released into the wild will lose their golden color within a few generations.
Long prized for its beauty, goldfish have been a part of the hobby since the beginning. However, they have been very mistreated for almost as long.
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Housed in tiny bowls, given as prizes, swallowed alive, used as live food, deformed beyond recognition - these are just a few of the tortures that they have experienced. If I were a goldfish, I really would sue. Many really don't think of them as living animals worthy of respect. It is shameful because goldfish can make excellent pets when properly cared for. They have great personalities and can be incredibly tough, but they are not really a beginner fish for many reasons.
First of all, standard adults can grow to well over a foot in length.
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While many decide to house their first goldfish in a bowl, unlike the betta probably the runner-up in the most abused category they are incredibly unsuited for such an environment. They need a much larger amount of oxygen in their water than most other fish. Without any water movement, the goldfish will slowly perish. Most people are surprised to learn that goldfish can live as long as twenty years.
Most die within the first few months because people don't understand how to meet their basic needs. Fish do not grow to the size of their environment. Placing a goldfish in a small tank or bowl will cause it to die a slow painful death. Common goldfish should be kept in large outdoor ponds or extremely large indoor tanks if they are to do well longterm.
So what are the requirements to successfully keep goldfish? I am going to discuss only the fancy varieties because they are the ones most suited for life in an aquarium. Again, keep the larger common goldfish in ponds. First of all, the fancy varieties of goldfish are much more fragile than the unaltered forms, but they can be housed in much smaller quarters.
A 55 gallon aquarium can keep three fancy goldfish comfortably for their entire lifespans which are cut to about ten years due to health problems. There are quite a few varieties to choose from, but I would stay away from the more severely deformed specimens. You must provide good filtration and aerate the water adequately. Goldfish are extremely messy, and they like to have clean water.
That is not a good combination. A powerful filter and frequent water changes are a must. Cleaning the tank is also a must as they tend to be messy eaters leaving the leftovers to rot in the tank. In addition, goldfish are a coldwater fish. They do NOT need heaters in their tank. The higher temperatures reduce the oxygen levels in the water causing stress for the goldfish.
Goldfish really should be housed with only other goldfish. If you really want to have tankmates, I can suggest white cloud mountain minnows, butterfly loaches, and apple snails as a few species that may do well with goldfish. Goldfish also happily consume live plants. Only java fern, moss, and anubias species will go untouched. Their diets need to be varied. A good quality pellet food made specifically for goldfish mixed with some green vegetable occasionally is a good start.
Once again, goldfish can make excellent pets if their basic requirements are met, but they really require some effort on their owner's part. Give them a try once you have the basics of fishkeeping figured out. Extremely hardy and colorful and easy to breed - what is not love about the platy. Native to Central America, platies are in the the livebearer family along with guppies, swordtails, and mollies. This means that they actually give birth to live young.
The Complete Cichlid Care Guide - My 20 Years Personal Journey Keeping Cichlids Thriving
To breed them, it is very simple. Just add a male and a female, and you will soon see small fry swimming in the tank. Males have a pointed anal fin called a gonopodium, and females have a dark gravid spot on their bellies. More females should be kept in the tank than males to prevent the females from being harassed by the males constant attempts to breed.
If you don't want the offspring to be eaten, you will have to separate them or provide a lot of hiding places in the tank as the adults will canabalize their young. It is truly exciting for a person to experience the live birth for the first time. Platies are also extremely easy to keep.
They like more alkaline water, but they can tolerate anything as long as it is not in the extremes. They are very forgiving of poor water quality, but frequent water changes should be performed to keep your fish happy and healthy. They are a very peaceful fish as well. They are happy swimming casually around the tank looking for bits of food or other goodies to munch on.
As long as they cannot be eaten by their tankmates, platies will get along just fine with about any fish. Lastly, platies come in a wide variety of colors and variations. You can easily find platies in red, yellow, or blue. They also have a mickey mouse variety with a marking that looks like mickey himself at the base of their tail. Sailfin varieties are also making their way into stores.
Swordtails are very close to the platies, but they are a little more feisty. Males will put on brilliant displays and mock duels in fighting for a female's attention. Their tails are very unique, and they come in many shapes and colors as well. As a precaution, platies and swordtails should not be kept in the same tank. They will breed with each other and pollute the bloodlines, so please keep them separate.
Platies are a great introduction to the hobby, especially for children who will enjoy the bright colors, activity, and offspring that the platy will deliver. They really are the ultimate beginner fish. Let me know what you think. Do you agree or disagree with my choices? Is there anything you would like me to add? Any feedback is appreciated. Sign in or sign up and post using a HubPages Network account. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites. Just soak the driftwood in a bucket for as long as you can changing the water every hrs untill you cant see the tint in the water but it can take months for it to finaly stop bleeding colour.
I have read why it happens , don't understand why fish stores can't sell driftwood already "seasoned" I had a rainbow tetras 3 eat the fin of my female Betta, those are different from rainbow fish, I guess but I've read most places if the Betta don't mind the other smaller fish then all should be well in a community tank but it took 5 days for them 3 rainbow tetras to get aggressive during feeding time and eat my Betta tail, I'm so devastated I'm thinking of giving up this hobby all together. Bettas are my 1 favorite fish I breed for a hobby.
That was the last thing I wanted to happen! This is completely wrong I highly recommend goldfish as they are very placid,neon tetras I also think are a good beginner fish apart from a lot of bigger fish can eat them and I have introduced loads of them to my aquarium without adding water to the bag and they are all fine. This was so helpful. I am so excited to start my first tank the correct way. This is a helpful article and makes me rethink some things.
My daughter age 16 got a 5 gallon, vertical desk top tank as she wants to start small and learn. I'm concerned about what fish to get for a small tank.
The Best and Worst Beginner Fish for Your Aquarium
She wants more than one fish. Also, I've read ghost shrimp may be useful. I loved the artical! I myself have a gal but still enjoy gettin the small colorful school fish that those would think might be not as fun but are always so playful with each other. I would agree that guppies are very easy to care for but they breed like bunnies lol.
I defiantly learned some new stuff from your artical, thanks! Excellent article, I agree with all of your choices. I would add endler guppies as a very easy fish to keep. Most are hybrids of fancy guppies and pure endler strains. I find them to be very hardy and if you enjoy watching fry grow up, you will be very pleased. Black Moore will this fish thrive with such fish as loaches silver dollars etc.. Helps a lot I already have platies and I love them. I have been doing fish for a while now but I still keep platies because they are simple and fun to take care of. I have a 6 gallon tank, currently used as a nersery for mollies, when they are big enough they will be put back in the main tank, leaving maybe 3 behind, what bottom feeders can i put in, l have the larger gravel with an imitation branch sitting on top and 3 plants in the corner and 3 moss stones, heated , a strong pump which airates the water.
I would disagree with the glofish being as hardy as the zebra danio. I've got a couple different tanks which both have either cardinal or neon tetras , and danio glofish are the only fish I've had issues with keeping alive and determining the cause of their deaths. The explanation my pet local petstore gave me was poor genetics. Glofish tetras, on the other hand are hardy and easy to maintain.
What about a dragon goby, would they be a good fish that will get along with other fish? Totally agree with your selections and comments. This is a hobby that never really goes away. I started out in the early 70's. Being in the military, your home was never permenant, so i started and gave away many! I now retired and back in the hobby again, 36 gal.
Bow, a 65 gal. Community tank, a 90 gal. Housing 2 oscars, 2 silver dollars and a big pleco! Considering a forthe latter crew. I hope im not stetching it, but have not found the filtration to keep me happy. I do not understand the under tank, sumps, skimmers, u v inhibitors???
The Best and Worst Beginner Fish for Your Aquarium | PetHelpful
I have a bristle nosed cat fish 8 danios and 6 neon tetras woke up and 3 danios have vanished from the tank would the catfish have ate them. Starting a ten gallon tank How many of your top 5 can live with each other? And should I only pick one kind, due to the small tank? Or Cory Catfish and one other?
What will little shrimpies work with? Thank you for sharing your knowledge!! Great article; great site. I really wish more pet stores, such as the one I work in, required actual education to work in fish. It's a hit or miss, honestly, though it gets annoying when people think I work commission and don't care about the fish after they leave the store. In places like Walmart, Petsmart, and Petco, they don't have requirements. All fish poo in their tanks. Platies aren't particularly heavy on the bioload in an aquarium. What size tank do you have and what fish are you keeping in it?
I have a platty for a week already. And I want some more. But it seems to be a poo-machine hence I am afraid to buy them. All the time I see it is pooing and no one other fish. Are platies so messy? I agree with the article, the most easy fish are platies, guppy and similar livebearers, when i was a boy and new to fish tanks i did some crazy things with my tanks and this fish survived it all: Betas and goldfish are probably the 2 most commonly abused fish.
While people don't realize their "happy" goldfish are existing in pain, stunted growth etc. Rule of thumb 1 gallon per inch of fish. With gold fish, being very messy, you need 20 gallons for initial and 10 gallons per additional and that's the bare minimum. I have 5 danio glofish in a They are also a schooling fish and need to be in a group of at least 5 preferably 6, im looking for the starfire red now to complete color set everyone is getting along great.
The numbers thing is important bc of stress, they tend to die, jump out etc if not properly schooled, i find those tiny kits as cruel as a goldfish in a bowl or a beta in a vase, living and existing are 2 entirely diff things. A person can "live" in a closet. Owning fish is a hobby and responsibility not adding a piece of furniture or plant to your home. There are so many Goldfish varieties. Some are tough cookies and some are not. So not all Goldfish types are beginner friendly but there are several which do.
Oh, and if you're looking for the carnivorous hunting action, goldfish are adept carnivores, especially koi. That koi was pig in disguise. He ate anything I put in there. I put minnows, ghost shrimp, guppies, all these little things because I wanted to start an ecosystem, but my tank wasn't large enough. The koi and the goldfish ate them up, but the koi ate them way more than the goldfish did. You could put like 8 minnows in the water, and within 3 days, they'd all but one or 2 be gone, even with a regular feeding schedule.
Also, they're poop-machines like the plecos mentioned above. He had developed some kind of fuzz over his eyes, and I was trying to treat it with Melafix, and it ended up killing him. I followed the directions, but I think I left the stuff in the tank too long because I think i left it in more than 7 days. I should have just gotten regular old-fashioned medicine, and anti-fungal, and then if that didn't work, and anti-bacterial. Oh well, now I've learned. I have to disagree, a goldfish is an excellent beginner fish if you're willing to mess with a gallon tank. They're extremely hardy fish that can last as long as any normal pet to upwards of 15 to 20 years so long as you take care of them and don't let their water get too overcome with ammonia.
Also, they can literally survive long road trips so long as you don't make their container air-tight, or find some way of pumping air into the container. Personally, I used a regular air pump with an air stone and one of those large cylindrical common use buckets, the ones with a lid that seals over the bucket for ice, paint, water, or whatever liquid you need to carry. I drilled a hole in the center of the lid, and put the tube into the water through that hole. Then I plugged the pump into my car. It worked beautifully, and my fish survived several long road trips that way.
Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. How to Maintain Your Freshwater Aquarium. Product details File Size: February 5, Sold by: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Read reviews that mention fish guide tank beginners wanting. Showing of 18 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Took me just 15 minutes to read, and provided absolutely no real information about cichlids, except to point you to a website that is also very non-user-friendly.
I was looking for information on the fish themselves, what their needs are, how to test water and understand the significance of the results, what to do if you see breeding, if one dies, anything I can't believe this book is more than 99 cents.
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I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know. All the information in this publication is available for free on the internet. Do not waste your money. I liked this book. I very much appreciated that he named good products to use. So many times your aquarium shop will advise on what they sell. If this is your first aquarium or you are converting from community tank to Cichlids, this is the book for you. Do you find it difficult to be able to pick the right cichlid fish for you and your cichlid aquarium?
Do you worry about how to identify potential cichlid diseases and ailments at times of unusual behaviour? Do you feel like you are not sure what the best nutrition is for your cichlids? Are you spending too much money on buying the essential supplies for cichlid care? Do you feel helpless, powerless and unsure how to deal with a cichlid being bullied? Do you worry on how to identify what causes your cichlid fish to show unusual behaviour? Identify the different cichlid species, helping to choose the right cichlid fishes for your aquarium Establish the correct tank environment and water conditions for your fish to thrive for years to come Identify the different diseases and how to treat these the right way to prevent death Choose the right nutrition for optimum health of your species Understand the various types of behaviour and why A personal Note from The Author: This book blends almost 20 years of personal experience as a cichlid enthusiast, helping many other enthusiasts with their cichlid care and having so-called experts asking me questions.
I understand the challenges of trying to figure out the correct tank environment, water conditions and the best nutrition. How to maintain your aquarium the right way in a few simple steps When to change your aquarium Water Food NOT to give your fish How to give your cichlids the best nutrition and care you can possibly give How to identify cichlid diseases and ailments in 3 simple, but little known, steps Introducing new Cichlids in your established tank When to seek professional help when it comes to cichlid care My Cichlid Book Also Shows You 3 proven steps to care that few people know about 2 simple keys that are right in front of your eyes to spot diseases 3 things you should never do when it comes to caring for your cichlid 7 everyday but often overlooked tips and tricks for setting up your cichlid tank Kindle Edition , pages.
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