Aquarium Fish - A Fun Hobby
So you have decided that keeping aquarium fish would be a fun hobby and adventure. Here are some useful tips to help you get started.
If you are going to have a regular tank, then you will need the proper equipment to go with it. Once you decide what size tank you are planning to have, buy it as a package deal so that you won’t have to be concerned about getting home and finding that you have forgotten something.
Once your tank is set up and ready for occupancy, you will want to decide what kind of fish you want to raise. You can’t just go to the pet store and buy one of each of the prettiest fish, as they may not be compatible. Fish play rough and a fish tank can be a rough neighborhood in which to live if the “landlord” (that’s you) doesn’t give some forethought to who will be living there. If you don’t want your new pets to be eaten alive by the other fish in your tank, you will definitely want to plan ahead. Careful study about which fish get along the best together can prevent you from feeling like some sort of a monster in a horror movie when you first introduce your pets to their new home.
If you are interested in having your fish breed, in order to have the enjoyment of watching them grow from babyhood through adulthood, you might want to consider raising guppies as your primary fish. They are a fairly hardy fish, live breeders, and tend to have a large number of offspring (known as kits) at a time. They are also inexpensive and a good fish for a beginner to start out with. The one drawback is that you will want to provide a way in which the babies can immediately be separated from their mother and the other adult fish before they become living fish food. As mentioned earlier, a fish tank is a rough neighborhood in which to live.
You may also want to consider buying a fish that will help you to keep the tank clean. An algae eater, such as a small catfish, would be good for that purpose and seems to get along well with guppies. Also, you might want to consider buying a snail to assist with the tank cleaning maintenance duties.
The hobby of raising fish is a fun one. Some people tend to look at the fish as living art, but each of them do have their own identities and personalities, are definitely fun to watch, and do become real pets.