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With my experience as not only a hobbyist, but also a LFS worker and manager, I have found that it is very difficult to recommend good fish for beginners. When this topic usually comes up, Danios, Livebearers, and Barbs are usually the first to come up. But through experience, I have found that those are not always a great choice.

Danios are generally the easiest fish to keep. They are super hardy, small, active, all around a good beginner’s fish. They are very popular, and any store that carries fish will most likely carry danios. Why can be wrong with them? Their biggest problem is their own popularity; they are just too popular for their own good. What does this mean? Like I said, almost every store has danios. And almost every store that has danios, has TONS of them. I have never worked at a store and not seen at LEAST a school of danios sold a day!

So what does this really mean? Fish stores MUST have danios. What happens when Mr. beginner fishkeeper comes in to buy some danios, and the store is sold out of them? He goes to the next store. That store earns his loyalty, and the first store loses it. So when stores stock danios, they stock them in large numbers, which means they may often order them in large numbers. When stores order fish, they are usually listed in quantities of 1, 5, 10, 15, or 25. Danios are one of the exceptions. Danios are usually listed in quantities of 25, 50, and 100. When they come shipped, there can be as many as 500 danios in a bag. While most distributors put in chemicals to calm the fish and neutralize the ammonia, this is still VARY traumatizing to the fish. While danios are very hardy, they can still die from this.

Now the bad case really comes from when they are put into the store. Many do not, most simply can not, quarantine fish when they come in. Even if they did, danios would still be on the bottom of the list of fish to quarantine. So now the overly stressed danios are put into the sale tanks. They were first traumatized by the travel, now they are in a new setup with new water parameters. VERY stressing. Now the customer comes and buys them and puts them through even MORE stress. So now the fish has just been through all this stress, they cannot stand it, they die.

Now this is very bad for the customer as they have been just told all these good things about danios. Basically, they have been told that if they cannot keep a danio alive, they should not keep fish. Danios often give a sense of security to the hobbyist, however, when they die, the hobbyist usually looses confidence in keeping fish alive.

Livebearers are also very popular among new fish keepers. There are just so many different color options, different looks, easy to breed, and called very hardy. Now after saying all that, I must also say my experience with them. Note that I have been able to breed MANY, MANY, MANY fish, including some I did not want to breed, however I have not been able to keep a livebearer alive over 6 months using the same techniques I use on all my other fish.

I have had success with livebearers by adding aquarium salt to the system, however this was the only way I was able to keep them alive. Now by doing so, I also limit the choice of other fish that I can keep with them. Many of the other fish that are kept with livebearers cannot stand the salt added to the tank (cory catfish especially). While one may be able to keep their livebearers alive, many of their other fish are not healthy.

Another issue with livebearers is their stocking requirements. If you want to keep males and females, it is best to keep a 2 or 3 to 1 female to male ratio. Males will fight with each other if there are not enough females, and males will also stress females out by wanting to breed more than the female is willing to. Males tend to be the better looking ones between the two sexes, so this poses an issue.

Barbs, because of their general hardiness are also recommended often as well. Barbs tend to have either one of two issues.

When many hobbyist think of barbs, they often think of Tiger Barbs. Most people know the personality of Tiger Barbs because of their popularity. They are very nice looking, active fish. However, they will nip the fins of other fish. You can err this a little by actually stocking more Tiger Barbs, however this may not always stop the harassment if the fish has too tempting of fins. Now Tiger Barbs are not the only barbs with this issue. Many of the barb family share this personality. Most are not as bad as tiger’s, but can still be just as bad of an issue.

The other problem is that some are delicate like tetras. Many barbs have similar needs as tetras, and are just as problematic. The issue with this is that someone may just recommend barbs in general, and the customer may get a delicate one.

Now some barbs are great. I have had a LOT of success with cherry barbs. They have been peaceful, active, hardy, and the males look VERY nice.

So what do I recommend as a beginner fish? Well, even despite this, I would still recommend Danios, Livebearers, and Barbs. Danios, when selected carefully can be great beginner fish. They are very hardy to beginner mistakes, active and thus can keep the new hobbyist interested, and come in a nice variety of looks.

Livebearers, despite their few issues, do seem to do pretty well. Peaceful, colorful, many varieties, etc..

Some barbs are good choices as well. Cherry Barbs, even as I am a little bias towards them, do really well in most tanks.

However, my best recommendation would be: RESEARCH!!! Know what your water quality naturally is, know what you are adding to the tank will do to your water, know what fish need, etc.. By studying and learning before hand, you can get almost any fish and have great success with it.

~Jorge

One thing I personally would never recommend for beginners is guppies. I've heard of a lot of people having issues with them and the only ones I have been able to keep alive are the fry that my females manage to drop before they die. It seems that the ones you buy in stores lately are of poorer quality and have very short life spans.

On the other hand, I've had wonderful success with Mollies, even though out of all the livebearers they have the reputation of being the most difficult to keep.

I have limited experience, and have only had my tank for 9 months, but I can say this....keeping guppies has been relatively easy for me.

All the disasters in my tank were MY mistakes...I didn't know how to do proper water changes, how to vacuum the bottom of my tank, or about keeping a good female to male ratio.

My 'BIG Retail Chain Corporate Monster Fish Store' was of NO help when I bought the tank. The 'expert' told me to keep 3 males together, she never told me about how to change my water, and never showed me a vacuum for the substrate. I was doing 75% water changes with no water conditioner????? I started getting wierd algae, sick/dead fish from gill burn...it was a mess.

Finally, my friend (a veteran fishkeeper) and my LFS (small store...love those guys) told me how to maintain the tank....and BAM!!! My guppies are flourishing. I have had 4 generation of fry, and my water is crystal clear. Plants are zooming, and algae is controlled.

Its a great hobby, and a small guppy tank is easy to maintain, and it leaves you room to grow as a fish keeper. You can add new species, add plants, practice aquascaping...and the guppies don't seem to mind at all.

Again...that was my experience. And it has made me graduate to a bigger tank....I guess I am 'hooked' (sorry)

72G Bowfront. 1 Sunshine Peacock, 2 Yellow Labs, 1 Ps. Elongatus, 1 Blue Ahli, 1 Red Kadanga, 1 Mel. Exasperatus, 1 metriaclima emmiltos, 1 Ancistrus.

14.5G 4 Neon Tetras.

We could argue all day about what is truly hardy and what is not. When people ask about beginner fish what fish to actually recommend is not nearly so important as it seems. What's really important is how the fish are kept. Even a begginner can keep somewhat more sensitive fish if they start out right from the first try. Anyone can also kill a danio or livebearers if they do enough things wrong. It's not the fish it's the setup and knowledge. More important than pointing out what fish survive most everything is what size tank they are going into, how to test the water, do water changes, and other tank maintenance, and above all else what a cycle is. Many fishstore employees still cannot explain basic cycling. It's buy this hardy fish, stick them in your tank and wait a few weeks(if your lucky they won't say a few days). Oh by the way some may die but that's just part of setting up a new tank. That's where beginners fail. Not the fact they choose weak fish but the fact they make too many mistakes to keep any fish alive.

Ill agree with sham on this one (will it never end? lol), I find recommendations of beginner fish fairly pointless too, and beyond steering them away from hopelessly difficult , aggressive or enormous specimes, that only experienced fishkeepers should be taking on, I cant see the use of it, it really is all in the care. I suppose the ultimate extension of recommending beginner species, is really only recommending the widely captive bred and replaceable of fish, to which there may be some point, but ultimately whatever fish id recommend I think id rather rely on the basics of imparting good animal husbandry, and proper investment in the setup rather than rely on a fairly unpredictable measure of personal toughness in the species chosen. I suppose ultimately there will never be a good fish to risk killing.The fish should ideally never be in that position.

A guppy or a danio is no more disease resistant than a cichlid, guppies do in actual fact die in their millions, being both intolerant of innaccurate med doses, high metabolisms ensuring water quality etc is a very quick killer should the perameters be transgressed.Danios too suffer comperable death rates to anything else, tough though they are they are subjected to cycling procedures that other people might not otherwise deem it possible to put a fish through.

Good care protects a fish completely, and suggesting beginner species does not. Its possible it might actually encourage unecessary risk taking in the keeper.

While it might seem that suggesting a tough species is a good thing, fish are still individuals, and well if you didnt want danio's but still want an aquarium, do you just stop? Nope, people dont. Nor should they be expected to, but what they should be expected to do is read up on the subject, and do a good job of cycling and setting up the tank. Most beginner mistakes will kill a fish irrelevant of species. So maybe sham has a convincing arguement? Perhaps its better to promote good fishkeeping as a standard culture, rather than the old culture of recommending a list of fish people are supposedly unable to kill. Lets be honest here, god knows what happens to half of the danios people cycle with or start out with. It might be nice to get away from a culture that seems to label them as dispensible.

Its probably more than open to debate, but in a way, perhaps the humble danio has suffered enough? Perhaps too, the beginner can be pushed farther than is the current expectation? It might be a way to improve things generally. Whatcha reckon?

Perhaps it depends on the client, certainly people with temperance can make better decisions, if they wait, do the reading etc, its by no means impossible that they start as a moderate level fishkeeper, it does seem odd that (presumably as a consequence of profiteering) that we seem so willing to take the potentially lethal shortcut of just giving people a "tough " fish, and letting them run with no degree of temperance or patience ever indicated as a necessary requirement of fishkeeping to help keep the fish alive.

Its one of those things, if you dont address it, it never changes.Gotta start somewhere. Maybe something labeled as an article has to take such things into consideration, after all when writing an article one doesnt have to retain the staus quo, its possible to use the opportunity to make improvements over your predecessors.

I rather like the idea that the successive generation of fishkeepers take advantage of the experience of other and supercede them from the beginning. Indeed many fishkeepers write as they do to encourage just that.

I agree with Sham on this, he did raise some very good points. I always tell people do your research in advance, figure out what fish you want to keep and learn everything you can about them. Then when you're fairly knowledgable about your selected species learn what you'll need for your setup. Learn what the cycle is, Oh boy do a lot of people flub this one up. How many times have we heard "what cycle?" Testing parameters to make sure what you've got is what you want... or if your local water source will be ok for your intended stocking. Water changes, filters and cleaning, the list goes on. Bottom line is research first. Buy the tank for the fish, not a fish that'll fit a certain tank.

goldfish is i think the easyest fish to keep their easy to keep alive and live along time and their very dosile.

Sorry dude, but thats lousy advice, they are one of the worlds worst beginner fish being that they require large tanks and excellent filtration. Goldies are killed by beginners in their millions. Hardy they are, but also far too big for bowls and small tanks. Goldies should live 30 years. Most people dont get em to more than four, and they die of the consequences of dwarfing, water pollution, and organ compaction. Per weight of fish they also kick out at least twice to four times the amount of ammonia that most tropicals do.

Goldfish are massively abused worldwide,and although they may be common, most goldfish kept in captivity suffer miserable lives. They are a pond and lakefish , not an aquarium fish, and even fancies should be kept in tanks of around 100-200 gallon.

Truth be told, goldies have been bearing the brunt of the crappiest efforts of the words most awful fishkeepers for about 400 years! Bound to get some tough fish in that time sure, but they should never have to endure small aquaria and the agnonies of dwarfing. There is a massive difference in what people believe is adequate care due to bad worldwide fishkeeping culture, and what is actually good fishkeeping. Even young goldfish deserve at leat 30-100 gal aquaria, and once past 4-5 inches, they should be heading for ponds of around 1000 gal plus.

The tough ones are the few survivors of thousands that get killed every year. A small tropical fish is much easier to maintain in a small quantity of water, and as such is much more suitable for a beginner fish. Dont forget , most beginners think a 10 gal is pretty big, and goldfish have no business in tanks that small.

To prove the point , I suppose I ought to whip out the obligatory picture of bruce the goldfish.

http://cellar.org/2002/recordgoldfish.jpg