Aquarium Fish

Livebearers, shoaling fish and cichlids:

temperament sorts aquarium fish more usefully than family does. Livebearers such as guppies, mollies and platies give birth to free-swimming young again and again, which is why they are the fish most often looking for a home. Tetras, rasboras and corydoras are peaceful shoaling fish that do badly alone, so they are best passed on as a group rather than split up. Cichlids are the strong characters, with angelfish and discus at the gentle end and convicts, jewel cichlids and the African rift-lake species at the other, where a pair will claim half the tank and defend it. Clownfish and other saltwater fish need a running marine setup before anything else. Whatever you take on needs somewhere to live first: tanks, filters and heaters are in aquariums and aquarium accessories, and goldfish or koi meant for the garden belong in pond fish.

Bettas, angelfish and the tankmates that clash with them:

more fish are lost in a mixed tank to the wrong company than to disease. Two male bettas will fight, and a betta’s long fins are a target for fin-nippers like tiger barbs. A small angelfish lives happily among neon tetras until it grows big enough to eat them. A convict pair guarding eggs drives every other fish into a corner, and African cichlids do best with their own kind. Weigh the adult temperament of anything new against what already swims in your tank. Water matters as much as company: mollies and African cichlids want hard, alkaline water, while discus and many tetras prefer it soft. Test what comes out of your tap before you choose, rather than choosing first and fighting the water afterwards. Guppies and platies cope with most conditions, which is part of why so many people start with them.

Dyed parrots, hollow bellies and the fish to leave behind:

some colour is not real. Glassfish injected with neon dye and blood parrot cichlids tattooed with hearts or patterns still turn up; the colour fades within months and the process is hard on the fish. Blood parrots are a hybrid whose mouth does not close properly, so ask what they have been eating. Then watch the fish in their own tank. A healthy one holds its fins open and comes up when food goes in. Leave a tank showing white specks of ich, frayed or reddened fins, cloudy eyes, a hollow belly or scales lifted like a pine cone, which is dropsy and rarely recovers, and ask whether anything has died lately. Even healthy-looking newcomers are safer in a separate quarantine tank for a few weeks before they meet your others.

A whole community left behind by a move abroad, or a convict pair’s fry:

if you are leaving Panama, start looking for a taker weeks before the movers arrive, and offer the fish as the community they already are, because a shoal split across three homes rarely settles as well. Give the species, how many, their rough size and what they share the tank with, and say whether your water is hard or soft. Grow fry on until they are too big for the mouths of the adults they will live with, and separate male and female livebearers so the next keeper does not inherit the same surplus. Before you agree a handover, find out how big the waiting tank is and who already lives in it, because a jewel cichlid going in with neons will not end well. The bags travel in a closed cooler on the floor of the car, never in a car left standing in the sun, along with a piece of mature filter sponge and a little of the food they know. Anyone keeping a convict pair should line up a taker before the next eggs hatch, because there will be next eggs.