Tropical Fish
In this article I will discuss the selecting of Tropical Fish for your aquarium.
Your selection of fish depends nearly entirely upon the sort of tropical aquarium fish stock available at your aquarium supplies dealer. It is difficult in this short article to mention all the possible of combinations of Tropical Fish that get along together, so only a handful of aquarium fish will be discussed.
Varieties of tropical aquarium fish can be broken up into four different categories, these being the live bearers, egg layers, scavengers, and bubblenest builders.
Livebearer Tropical Fish are those which have live young born to them. Male live bearers have a modified anal fin with which they are able to impregnate the female. Live bearer aquarium fish will devour their young as soon as they are born. It is worthwhile to have a heavily planted fish tank for the young to hide or use a breeding trap. For the beginning aquarist, livebearers are the easiest to keep and breed. Heading the list of livebearers is the colourful guppy. Other live bearing tropical freshwater fish are the mollies, sword tails and platies.
Egglaying Tropical Fish are quite different physically, than live bearing fish. They have no apparent sexual differences although in most instances there are ways to determine their sex. Generally speaking the males have more brilliant colors, whilst the females are heavier in body. Usually males will also have longer anal or dorsal fins. The group of egglaying fish is very large and include such aquarium fish as zebra fish, tetras, the barbs, danios, cichlids and angel fish. Even the common goldfish and koi fish belong to this group, although they are coldwater fish species. When goldfish are moving into the spawning season the females will grow round with eggs and the males develop small white pimples (actually glands!) on their gills.

As with all groups of animals a certain class are destined to live off the ‘leftovers’. Scavenger fish fill this role in the tropical aquarium. Fish keepers introduce scavengers to clean up the uneaten food given to other Tropical Fish. Nearly all these bottom feeding catfish belong to the family Corydoras, and except for some color differences, they all have the same body shape. Their pointed mouth, which is flanked by whiskers, sits under their body. They use it to dig in amongst the pebbles and gravel for food. Catfish are all nocturnal and it is recommended to have one catfish for every six other fish in the fish tank.
The Betta Fish, or Sia
mese Fighting Fish, is undoubtedly the most beautiful Tropical Fish that ever adorned an aquarium, and also probably one of the most interesting. They, along with gouramis, belong to the bubblenest Tropical Fish. These exotic freshwater fish build large nests of bubbles and saliva in which they place their eggs. The male Siamese Fighting Fish will protect the nest until the fry swim away. Tropical Fish such as the Beta, are able to extract oxygen from the atmosphere using a specialized gland on top of their heads. This unique adaptation allows these Tropical Fish to survive in still unoxygenated water.
Here is a free ebook for people new to keeping aquarium fish. Download it by clicking this link.



