Tropical Fish

Tropical fish keeping is ideal for people that are new to the fish keeping hobby or people that might want something else other than a coldwater setup.

Tropical fish keeping does not need to incur large initial set up costs as most big pet stores now offer aquariums with all the equipment you need for around £100. Although these are only small aquariums with a capacity of under 50 litres, they will be suitable for most tropical fish.

If you are a bit more experienced or have a larger budget then you might want to look at buying a larger aquarium for your tropical fish such as a Juwel Rio 180 which is a good sized tropical aquarium. These types of aquariums do cost more but they also have ample filtration and come with lighting and heating, so everything you need to get up and running in the world of tropical fish keeping.

Breeding certain types of types of tropical fish such as Platys can be easy since they are livebearers so give birth to live young. However this should be carefully considere as you can soon end up with lots of baby fish in your aquarium. Also if you are buying a livebearer from your local pet shop ask if they will take any fry back as you might accidentally end up with a pregnant fish. This is something to bare in mind.
If you have a large enough aquarium then this shouldn’t pose to much of a problem, also you will find that some of the fry will get eaten by the mother and die through other causes if its an unexpected birth.

There is a wide variety of tropical fish that are available to tropical fish keepers. Tetras and Danios are cheaper fish to buy and also tend to school together and often like to race around your aquarium. Barbs often look pretty but can be bit of a pain as they will tend nip and bully other slower moving and smaller fish. Purchasing tropical fish from a local fish shop where the tanks are clean and the fish look healthy and are moving around freely and are free from dead fish in their show aquarium is highly recomended.