Fish
Find and offer fish in Panama.
In a lowland living room the water in a tank stays close to the rivers tetras, guppies and angelfish come from, which makes tropical fish the easy choice here and goldfish the harder one. Koi do better in a shaded pond, and better still up in the Chiriquí highlands. The tanks, filters, pumps and pond liners that keep any of them alive are bought and sold here, new and pre-owned. The fish themselves are passed on without a price: usually one that has outgrown its tank, or a whole community going with the setup when a hobbyist moves house.
Aquarium fish, pond fish and the tanks behind them:
most people start with a tank and only then choose who lives in it. Tropical freshwater fish, from a single betta on a desk to a shoal of tetras in a planted tank, make up most of aquarium fish, with a smaller marine side for anyone running a reef. Koi and goldfish kept outdoors belong in pond fish. The glass, filters, heaters and lights are in aquariums and aquarium accessories, and that is where the money changes hands, because the fish are rehomed, not priced.
Goldfish, koi and the heat of a lowland pond:
both are cold-water fish, happiest somewhere around 18 to 24 °C. They survive warmer water, but warm water holds less oxygen, and a small, shallow pond in full sun in David or Santiago warms up fast on a bright afternoon. If you want them in the lowlands, give them depth, shade over part of the surface and an air pump or waterfall running day and night. A pond in Volcán or Cerro Punta stays cool enough that koi need far less help. Tropical aquarium fish turn that around, since a lowland room already sits near the water they come from. What decides the choice there is adult size. A common pleco sold at finger length can pass 40 cm, and a coin-sized oscar becomes a fish that needs a tank of 75 gallons or more. Look up how big a fish gets before you take it home, not how big it is in the bag.
A used pond liner, pump or someone’s whole fish setup:
sun is what finishes pond gear. A rubber EPDM liner stays flexible for many years, while cheaper PVC goes stiff and cracks wherever it sat exposed above the waterline, so bend an exposed edge before you agree to take one. Preformed plastic shells crack at the corners when they are lifted out full or set on uneven ground. Ask to see a submersible pump run in a bucket and follow its cable all the way to the plug: a cut or a taped splice on a lead that sits underwater means a new pump, not a bargain. Treat the bulb in a UV clarifier as something to replace, because it stops working long before it stops glowing. Taking on someone’s fish along with their tank or pond is common when a household moves, and the longer the setup has run with the same fish in it, the better the sign. The one to be wary of is a pond dug last month and already stocked full.
When the pleco outgrows the tank or the pond comes out:
say what the fish is, how big it is now, what it eats, which tankmates it has chased or eaten, and whether it lived in fresh or salt water. A clear photo and a short video in the tank tell a keeper more than any description. Ask the people who reply what they will keep it in, because a 40 cm pleco needs a big tank or a pond, not a bowl. Equipment goes faster photographed running, with the pump’s flow rating and the liner’s dimensions written down. Whatever happens, never let a fish go in a river, a reservoir or the canal. Peacock bass brought in for a sport-fishing pond decades ago got out into the Chagres and spread through Gatún Lake, and many of the small native fish there all but vanished. A garden pond that spills into a ditch in a heavy downpour does the same thing more slowly, so fit it with an overflow screened against fish before the rains arrive.