How to Choose Fish for a Freshwater Aquarium

By eHow Pets Editor

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Choosing the right inhabitants for your aquarium requires a bit more thought than simply matching their colors to your couch. Follow these simple steps to fish bliss.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Step1
Determine the number of fish you can house by the size of your tank. A general rule of thumb is to allow 2 inches of fish per gallon of water.
Step2
Buy your fish from a reputable dealer who will back up his product. You want clean fish that won't get each other sick. A good sign that the seller knows what he's talking about is his show tank. Do the fish seem happy? Is it the way you imagine your tank looking when it's complete? If you see dead things floating in the tanks, look elsewhere.
Step3
Read about the fish you want. Some have particular needs, whether temperature, chemical, dietary, or compatibility-related.
Step4
Get school fish. Compatibility problems are minimal and it will be easy to see if any of the fish are behaving oddly (indicating illness). Try neons or cardinal tetras, Corydoras catfish, any of the small barbs, rasboras, loaches, or pearl and zebra danios.
Step5
Resist the urge to get one of everything you like, particularly with school fish.
Step6
Try a bristle-nose or clown plecostomus, or a pair of otocinclus catfish to help control the algae.
Step7
Raise killifish, which are excellent for a beginning aquarium, but difficult to find.
Step8
Ask your fish dealer about compatibility with other fish in your tank. Be careful of cichlids ' some grow quite large. Angelfish require tanks larger than 10 gallons. Stay away from Oscars, which tend to eat the other fish and are particularly messy.
Step9
Avoid the urge to impress people with a piranha. This shy fish has the unfortunate honor of eating many of those unhealthy goldfish. This is not only expensive, but unless you want to quarantine every feeder fish you buy, you're likely to have issues with disease and parasites. They are school fish but need to be well-fed or they will eat each other.
Step10
Think about Bala sharks, which are cool-looking non-sharks. They grow to more than 12 inches, however, so unless you're ready to accommodate that much fish, it's best to leave these alone.
Step11
Avoid catfish in general. They are nasty predators and tend to grow. And grow. And grow '

Tips & Warnings

  • Quarantine every new fish before you add it to your tank.
  • When you bring your new fish home, wrap the plastic bag that it's in in something opaque. The easiest way is to put it in a paper bag.
  • Be sure to introduce the fish to its new environment slowly. Equalize the water temperature by floating the bag in the tank. Add tank water periodically to the bag water.
  • Keep the lighting minimal for the first few days the fish is in its new home.
  • Be sure there are plenty of hiding places for your new fish.
  • Don't add more than four fish at a time; you don't want to cause a chemical imbalance in the tank.
  • Stay away from goldfish, which are not true tropical fish and require cooler temperatures than many other species. They also tend to have many health problems.
  • Knife fish are suspicious additions to your new tank. Look to this nocturnal predator when your other fish begin to disappear.

Comments

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Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 I don't agree that all chiclids are good together. I had two. The bigger one ate the smaller one. The bigger one is now 2 years old and very spoiled.

Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 Don't ever add water from a fish store tank to your tank. New fish are chemically treated, and you don't want to contaminate your water with those chemicals.


Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 1/9/2008 If you have what I call a peaceful tank community such as Angels, Tetras, and Guppies, stay away from those cute "Puffers." I found out the hard way. They will kill everything in the tank they can.

Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 6/30/2006 Dyed fish are fish that would otherwise be white or very plain looking. Dying fish kills many of them and leaves the remaining with serious health risks. Berry Tetras are among them. I have 2 berry tetras I bought before I realized they were dyed. My two are healthy, especially my blue one who is full of personality! Just beware; they are pretty, but they may die.

Anonymous

Anonymous said

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on 3/23/2006 Under no conditions can male beta fish be in the same tank, an experiment was made where two male betas were put in a lake, on two different sides of the lake, they met close to the center of the lake, and one beta killed the other. Another thing, beta fish can be hard to have in a larger size tank, their natural habitat is usually around air pockets in the water. They are use to a smaller closed in space, and tend shy from other fish, but because they require to breath out of water, they stay toward the top. It would be hard to find a hiding place at the top of a large tank. One last thing with betas, each one has a personality of its own. Some betas can be mixed with other fish and get along fine, some beta fish will kill everything else in the tank, more so if they do not have a place to hide and shy away from the others.

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eHow Article:  How to Choose Fish for a Freshwater Aquarium

eHow Pets Editor

eHow Pets Editor

Category: Pets

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