Fish as Pets Australia

If you want a pet that you can "pet" a fish is not right for you. But if you are allergic to fur and still want some company at home, and if you like to watch animals in their natural habitat, then a fish sounds like a great idea.�

You may have been impressed by an aquarium you have seen recently, or perhaps you are looking for an interesting spare time activity. You may not realize it, but you are standing at a crossroads! Ahead of you lies not just a new hobby, but, provided you take the right path, a lifetime of enjoyment and a host of new friends. The other roads, however, lead to disillusionment and disaster, and yet another "aquarium for sale" advertisement in the local paper.

The key to success is always to know what you are doing before you start doing it. From the fishes' viewpoint it is irrelevant that you are only a beginner if you don't get it right then they will be at best stressed, at worst dead. The moment you acquire a fish you become responsible for its welfare. You control a fish's environment completely. The temperature, ph, salinity, cleanness, of what it breathes and lives in.

There are different levels of difficulty in keeping fish.

Super Easy - Siamese fighting fish would fall into this category as they can live in a small dirty puddle. They prefer not to of course!

Easy - common Goldfish. Whilst not super easy, they are hardy and can survive large changes in temperature, ph, and even tank cleanness. They tend not to hurt each (or tank cleaning snails) other unless very different in size And they are cheap.

Harder - Tropical fish such as cichlids, or fish from creeks. Creek found varieties tend to be those still living, after wiping out the other varieties... so if you get fish from the creek, expect them to go straight to the top of the pecking order if placed with fish in a tank where the existing fish are more or less the same size. Creek fish will also tend to be disease resistant, though carrying disease, so your other tank fish might well die from diseases such as white spot introduced by creek fish. Tropical fish require warm water, and more control over ph. Warm water can be managed by a heater and a thermostat, but keeping ph levels stable in a tank can be difficult. Plants can help remove ammonia from building up in water, but many tropical fish destroy tank plants which causes proteins and the like to be quickly returned to tank water. A few days of inaction with a tropical fish tank if a problem sets in, could result in an empty tank. Cichlids will eat all tank cleaning snails as well and males will FIGHT!

Extreme - Salt water tanks or estuary tanks populated with wild caught marine life. You'd think this would be the easiest. Fill a tank with sea water and chuck some fish from the local rock pool in. Add some shellfish, some snails and off you go. But in this environment, you have the most amount of variables to manage. Keeping marine life that is compatible with each other, temperature, ph and chemical levels in the water, diet(most difficult for marine species) but now also salinity levels. You can not simply increase or decrease salinity by adding/removing salt. Only sea salt can be used, and in any case, most marine environments needs the trace minerals and elements, bacteria and small creatures etc that can only be added by adding fresh sea water. So keeping such tanks involves going to the ocean to get new sea water, not just adding sea salt with tap water....

With all this in mind.... keeping fish is fun. Don't think its little work, its not. Sure, no walking the fish, but there is cleaning the tank, changing the water(not such a big deal? Try changing the water in a 10 x 4 x 3 foot salt water tank.) and managing their environment can be a lot of work. For the beginner, try a fighting fish or some goldfish, but later on if the bug catches you, moving on to tropical fish keeping can provide hours of entertainment.

Join a fish forum and ask fish nerds(some prefer to be called enthusiasts) lots and lots of question. Many are happy and eager to share advice and tips. This advice will save you hundreds in failed fish keeping attempts as well as the lives of your fish.

Happy fish keeping

Aquarium Fish Breeds

Buying Your Fish

Feeding your Fish

Fish Breeding

Fish Diseases and Treatments

General Maintenance Of Your Fish Tank

Keeping Amazon Fish in a "Natural" Aquarium

Setting Up An Aquarium

So you want to buy some fishes and set up an aquarium

Water Quality In Your Fish Tank

Other relevant pages - Fish as Pets

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Fish and Aquarium Businesses

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