Well, our baby has taken a fascination to fish, so we wanted to get some. However, I want to know what the easiest fish to take care of are. I don’t want to spend a lot of money either. If anyone knows what I should get to spend very little time caring for them, as well as a low intial investment, that would be appreciated. Also, colorful fish would be a bonus.
Whitebait and prawns are very popular.
Erm,… maybe not,… I was thinking of a whole other question. Sorry.
Okalie doke! First, my (brief) qualifications: I’m an aquarist, having had aquariums of various sizes containing various species since I was 7. I’ve bred several different kinds as well. I currently have 2 tanks running with two totally different families of fish within them.
So, considering what you’re asking: low initial investment, low time and care commitments, and bright coloring, here are my suggestions.
It is worth the initial investment to buy either a 5 gallon or 10 gallon “starter” tank kit that includes some variety of filter and air pump (and a tank cover!). Although more expensive than a bowl, it is much less of a time/care commitment–and also ensures healthier fish. (Total cost commitment, depending on where you go and what you get, will be $20-$50.) Bowls are a home of stagnant water for the fish, and they become dangerously toxic for the fish quickly. There is very little oxygen as the water isn’t circulating, and oftentimes you see the oxygen-starved fish at the surface, trying to gulp air and force it through their gills. The bowls will stink, develop weird slimes, and require weekly water changes. Be sure to buy water treatment–tap water is toxic to fish! These products will remove the chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia toxins.
Good “beginniner” species, with pros and cons listed:[ol]
[li]Bettas (“Siamese Fighting fish”): Despite their fearsome name, they really aren’t that aggressive. I have one in a tank with several other fish; as long as the other fish aren’t slow-moving, long-finned species, the betta will leave them alone. Bettas have an unusual anatomical feature: a “labyrinth” organ which enables them to extract oxygen from the air to supplement what is pulled from the water (this is due to the harsh conditions of their natural habitat). This is why bettas can be sold in those ridiculous little cups at pet stores–no other species would survive more than a few hours that way. They are typically very hardy, gorgeously colorful, and aren’t picky about water conditions. Cost: About $5 for a male, $3 for a female. [/li]
[li]Goldfish: These traditional pets are great starter pets if you start with a healthy fish. Those sold in stores can be very sickly, particularly the cheap feeder goldfish (“comet” is their variety). If you need help identifying characteristics of healthy fish, let me know. However, I do not recommend keeping other species with goldfish. They excrete high levels of ammonia, and also have higher slime coating on their scales than most species. There are many varieties and colors, and can be exceptionally hardy–but also exceptionally sickly. Cost: Anywhere from 25 cents to $50 depending on what you want. A good starter pet goldfish would be in the $4-10 range.[/li]
[li]Guppies: These are highly active, very colorful fish. They are also the rabbits of the fish world: If you have a male and female, you’ll soon have about 100 little tiny babies. This can be good or bad, depending. It’s a great learning experience for the kid, but you may not want 50 guppies. Still, they’re small fish; 50 would be fine in a 10 gallon, believe it or not. Males are very colorful, with long, flowing fins; females are usually very dull. They are pretty hardy little fellows, but also apt jumpers. Be sure to have a lid! Cost: You can buy 10 for $1.00 if you buy less fancy feeder variety; otherwise they’re typically no more than $5-6 a pair.[/li][/ol]
Also…buy a corydoras “corycat” to be a little vacuum in the fish tank. Uneaten food that settles on the bottom can throw off the water cycle of natural nitrates/nitrites; corycats–strictly bottom feeders, and amusing little fellows at that–help keep things clean. They’re about $5 or so, depending on variety.
Setting up the tank will be a bit of work, but once everything has gotten started, you can leave the tank alone for weeks at a time. My current 10 gallon has 1 betta, 5 glass cats, and a corycat…and is crystal clear, requiring water changes only every 4-6 weeks.
Good luck! I’m obviously enthusiastic about the subject, so if you need anything else, fire away!
So Ruffian, do you think 2 Betta fish in a 10 gallon aquarium with one of those corydoras would be a good place to start?
Also, how long should I condition my water and such before I introduce fish? You said tap water was bad without conditioning it. Do you recomment using the tap water before or after it has run through a water softener? I have a reverse osmosis filter that is in place for drinking water that occurs after the softener, would that be a good bet? I don’t know the condition of my water otherwise, other than it tastes horrible and meets state standards.
Also, is there a reason the Betta fish are cheaper for a female? Would I want a male or female?
Wonderful topic - my five-year old is also fascinated with fish and I was thinking of a small tank for his room.
Is there a good book on the subject (for me - he doesn’t read yet)?
How often do you feed them? Is there a way to protect from overfeeding? Is there such thing as overfeeding?
Water changing? How is this accomplished?
So many question marks - so little time…
Try the beginner’s aquarium FAQ for a whole plethora of useful tips.
You could maybe be ok with two females, or a male and a female. Never two males in the same tank, or they’ll kill each other.
Females are cheaper because they are rather plain in comparison to the males, no long pretty fins. My friend has some females that are rather nicely colored though.
I would start with “Hampton Comes Alive.” Avoid the “Vol” series until you really get hooked. Nothing beats a live Phish show though…
oh, never mind.
Oh, dear. Apparently I left out the biggest Betta rule. Yes, as elfkin said, do NOT ever put two males in the same tank. Heck, I tried having 2 in a 60 gallon tank (4 feet long) and that still wasn’t enough territory. Bettas are NASTY to each other. I wouldn’t even recommend a male and female in one tank. I’ve bred them (albeit, the eggs were sterile, dammit!), and the male is very, very aggressive in pursuing the female. So–if you want Bettas, it’s either one solitary male (although you could later add other species), or several less-colorful, short-finned females (thus, the decrease in cost). Which you would prefer–male or female–is really a matter of personal preference.
I would recommend just one betta and a corycat to begin with. Once the tank is established and you yourself are a little more established with caring for the tank, you can add a few other species. Be careful, though; faster species, like danios and barbs, will actually shred Mr. Supposedly Big Bad Betta (I’ll help you when and if that time comes). My betta’s in with wonderfully docile (but rather fragile) glass cats. Every now and then, Bilbo Betta will go chase one around, to let him know He’s Boss. Being that he’s a slow mover, it’s a short chase and never causes any harm.
“Conditioning” the water is really simple–just buy AmQuel (it should come with a starter kit); I’m sorry I didn’t explain that a little better. It’s a chemical additive that neutralizes the toxins in the tap water, and it works almost immediately. A water softener would not have much effect one way or the other; fish will be fine as long as chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia is removed/reduced. AmQuel (or NovaQua) will do the trick. The directions on the bottle explain how much to add.
Be advised…set up your tank and then let it run, filters and all, on its own for at least 24 hours–if not a few days–before adding fish. It will be a little cloudy at first; that’s completely normal.
Now, when I set up my little 10 here in the office, I experienced something I had never experienced before:New Tank Syndrome. This is where the bacteria more or less has a heyday in the unnaturally immaculate conditions of your tank. In my case, as detailed in the website, it took about a month for everything to cycle into a normal healthy balance. During this time, the tank was stinky, the water cloudy, and frequent water changes just kept things balanced. This condition won’t begin until a fish–and the bacteria that come with him/her–is introduced. This is another reason why I strongly recommend just buying the two fish at first. For one thing, they’re both hardy species and hopefully will be able to withstand the ups and downs of the cycling; for another, you won’t lose money on fish that can’t handle the shock of being introduced to such severe conditions. (I lost 4 of my first 5 glass cats this way–some within hours! Eep!)
Hopefully, you will not experience New Tank Syndrome. I think it was more severe in my case because it was an old tank I’d used before that had been in the garage; the gravel probably hosted a world of toxic critters. Grr.
I’ll finalize with a more specific list of what your tank kit should include, plus individual prices to help you gauge cost of buying pieces (all priced for a 10 gallon):
- Tank (duh)–about $8-10 for a 10 gallon tank at Petsmart
- Gravel – about 1lb per gallon of tank–about $10
- Lid–either glass or full cover; doesn’t matter too much–$20-25
- Light–usually included with the lid (inc. above)
- AmQuel/NovaQua/some variety of water treatment that removes chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia (make sure it has those 3 – some products only do 2 or even 1 of the 3)–$5
- Filter: One of the most important aspects. What kind of filter you get will determine other equipment; corner filters (that sit inside the tank in a corner) will require angel hair, charcoal, tubing and an air pump, as will undergravel filters. Circulating “power” filters–that sit outside the tank and have a tube that reaches down into it–will need a filter pack. I recommend Power Filters as they are relatively inexpensive and most effective of their price range. I have one on my 10 and it (and the corycat) keep things nice and clean.
(“Whisper” is an old and trusted brand–all of my filters have been Whisper and are awesome.) The Whisper filter there is $13. Usually, an introductory filter pack–what you put inside it to clean the water–is included.
Everything above and beyond the above is fluff–nice decorations and such, but not requirements. What food you buy will depend on what fish you buy. Items that you will likely want in the future, but can wait: siphon, net, plastic plants, bucket, algae scraper, and miniature shipwrecks.
(BTW, the PetsMart web site has a Top Fin Aquascene 10 gallon kit for $50.)
Hmm…hope I haven’t overloaded you with information! But, glad to be of help! 
I composed a longer reply earlier, but the hamsters must have died or something–I don’t know what happened to it. It looks like Ruffian covered most of what I was going to say, but I do have a very good book to recommend. It is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freshwater Aquariums by Mike Wickham. Unfortunately, the book is out of print 
but if you can find it, read it! Perhaps your library has a copy (that’s where I originally discovered it.) Your local library probably has lots of fish books–read them. The more reading you do beforehand, the better! Also, the latest Aquarium Fish Magazine (September 2002) has an article about the best fish books for beginners, so some of those books might suit your fancy, too.
One of the things Mike Wickham suggests is to start with as large a tank as possible–at least 20 gallons. It is much easier to control the chemistry in a larger tank, so your chances of sucess are much greater. Also, a larger tank will hold more (or larger) fish, which is more likely to keep a child’s interest longer. If you are buying everything from scratch, a 20-gallon really doesn’t cost that much more than a 10, and it will probably be a better investment in the long run.
My five year old has liked the corydoras cats, the coolie loaches (look like little eels, but they hide a lot), the zebra danios (they chase each other around the tank and are very hardy), and the guppies (babies!), but her absolute favorite was the ghost shrimp, “Shrimpy” (may he rest in peace). I’m thinking about starting a tank for her that’s just full of shrimp. I’ve found that kids like action in a tank. Bettas are very pretty, but kind of boring. YMMV.
He really seemed to like his Grannie’s gold fish. He’s more with colors and some movement than pure action. After all, he’s only 4 1/2 months, he can keep up if they move too fast or they are too small.
BTW (anyone), How much harder are Goldfish than Betas?
The information provided is pretty complete. I just wanted to say that I think it is awesome that Ruffian, who is located in Southern California, has the link regarding New Tank Syndrome to the web site of my local fish store here in Milwaukee. I should be jaded after all these years, but sometimes the Internet can be so cool.
In case you didn’t navigate through their site, they have an extensive list of articles that are very educational and helpful.
Oops. Forgot to mention this. Here is a list of common freshwater aquarium fish. Anything listed with an asterisk (*) is a good starter fish.
Ruffin’s list is very good, but as I was shopping for my own tank a couple of months ago (I have a 5gl hex with four neon tertas, if anyone cares) I noticed that Wal-mart had a starter kit for your standard rectangular 10gl that included hood and filter (maybe a Whisper, I’m not positive, though) for $30 and a more deluxe model with more things for $50. You might want to go that route since even if the filter isn’t a good one, you might end up saving money over the cost of buying a tank and hood seperately. I’m pretty sure they had 5 and 20gl kits as well. They have the nicer looking tanks, like mine and a 5gl Aquascene for $30-35 too(they were only $15 more each at petco :rolleyes: ), and those do come with good filters.
Dilbert, that’s a bit of a difficult question. Apples and oranges and all. Plus, my experience with them is certainly not the universal case, and neither would be someone else’s experience.
But, this is what I’ve encountered with goldfish: Whenever I’ve been to a tropical fish store, it is the goldfish tanks that tend to look the worst. There, you often see some fish hovering limply, fins folded against the body, in corners or at the surface. A dead fish, or dying fish, is a common scene. Even when buying healthy-looking fish from such a tank, I’ve had goldfish kick the water bucket within days of purchase.
YMMV, but I’ve had multiple varieties of South American and African cichlids, fragile glass cats, reed fish, etc. and I can tell you the hardest time I’ve had with fish health was when I had goldfish in my classroom fish tank. However, as a kid, I also had one that lived 6 years.
Bettas, meanwhile, seem a bit more resilient. They are, as mentioned, a bit more lethargic as well.
Oh, zebra danios…I forgot about those. If you’d want more active fish, they are a good choice. White cloud tetras are also pretty hardy, as well as active.
I remember as a kid not liking the danios, though, because they’d chase other fish around. They also are notorious fin-nippers, so you wouldn’t want anything with long, flowing fins (goldfish, bettas…) in the tank.
But, on their own or with the white clouds, they are good choices as beginner fish as well.
Striped Convicts
They are a lot of fun. Extremely aggressive and extremely horny. I put a female striped convict into my sister’s aquarium, and it killed all of my sister’s fish. Because convicts don’t have teeth, she did it by nipping at the other fish constantly until they were battered to death.
I then put a larger male into the tank. Love ensued:)
I then had a tank full of baby convicts, and would watch the feeding frenzy as I dropped guppies into their tank.
Awhile afterward, my college roommate got a striped convict, and I took the last survivor of my first convict’s progeny and put it in my roommate’s tank. Love ensued:)
Convicts are also a fairly hardy breed, making them good for beginners, and with all their fighting and fornicating, are definitely fun to watch.
I should add that striped convicts are part of the cichlid family. I currently don’t have fish, but should the situation arise where I would get a new tank and new fish, I would probably opt for another cichlid, the Jack Dempsey. They have the same shape as convicts, but have nicer coloring on them.
In my excitement about my fish store’s web site, I neglected to mention my own experiences.
I’ve had a 20 gallon tank for about 18 years. I’ve often wished for a larger tank, but never a smaller one. As a matter of fact, my very first tank was one of those desktop 2 gallon hexaginal tanks. My fish never lived long in there because the temperature and chemistry is too hard to keep constant.
Also, the larger the tank, the more fish you can have (a rule of thumb is one inch of fish per gallon of tank). Also, there are various shapes of tanks of the same size. Get the one that has the largest surface area to facilitate oxygen exchange.
I started off with Tetras (serpae), Danios (zebra), Barbs (green and tiger), Sharks (redtail, not ocean sharks) and Loaches (clown). I tried a bunch of other stuff over the years too, but got bored. About five years ago I switched my tank completely to cichlids which come in a large variety of colors and patterns. They’re much more aggressive so you can’t mix them with “normal” community fish (although I have a tiger barb in there that is more aggressive than the cichlids).
For interest, I’ve always had either fiddler crabs or crayfish in my tank too. The kids loved this stuff better than the fish when they were little. There is something familiar to a child about the crustacean “waving its arms about”.
Someday I will attempt a salt-water tank. Maybe when I’m retired. Salt water tanks are touchy, but as a scuba diver, I long to recreate what I see on the reef.
Upon preview, I see that FNRFR recommends Convicts. I’d caution the reader that these are a Cichlid breed, and usually cannot be mixed with passive fish, as evidenced by his description of the Convicts eating the Guppies. Just be careful and understand the consequenced of what you do.
As an example, early on in my Cichlid experience, I bought a few new, smaller fish. Within seconds of releasing them into the tank, they were gobbled up by my Hap Ahli (a big beautiful iridescent blue Cichlid). My daughter gasped in horror as the cute new fish, intended as pets, became fish food instead. It’s funny in retrospect, but at the time it was somewhat traumatic to my daughter.
Geez. Spell much? How can I get crustacean and iridescent correct, but not hexagonal?