Of course there are beginner or starter fish, imo. This should be obvious is because we easily know there are fish which are unsuitable for beginners. Eliminate all of these and what is left?
There is a huge difference between the the knowledge and experience of a fish keeper setting up their very first tank and folks who have been in the hobby years and who may have multiple tanks. There are starter fish for the same reason there are starter plants. I would not tell a beginners to go high light, pressurized co2 and demanding plants in their fist planted tank.
Life would be lovely if we could all be experts as soon as we became interested in any subject. But we are not, we have to learn by doing. The more we learn about something, the less we are likely to make mistakes due to lack of experience. So the question is really which fish are most likely to survive the mistakes every one of us has made when we first started? Those are the starter or beginner fish.
Take something as simple and basic as cycling. Fishless means no fish will be harmed, and while most newbies now use this method, some still end up doing a fish in cycle, and most will do it wrong to boot. If you are doing it correctly it should take about the same amount of time to do the initial stage of the average fish in cycle as it takes to complete the average fishless cycle that allows for full stocking all at once (about 5 weeks).
Ask yourself this. A friend comes to you and says they are going to set up their first tank and they intend to do a fish in cycle. They are not willing to go fishless despite everything you say. And then they ask you with which fish they should start. And your answer should be "good starter fish," those hardy enough to survive a bit of ammonia, to tolerate a wider range of parameters that will likely swing.
Even when a new keeper does a fishless cycle so that the first fish they stock do not need to be the more ammonia tolerant ones, they must still be the fish which need the least specialized care. This is why we so often suggest one get fish that work in one's tap rather than trying to change ones tap to suit the fish.
My first tank was a 45 gal., cycled with fish and when finally stocked held swordtails, panda and paleatus cory, and zebra danio. 15 years later and I keep wild altums, breed some rare plecos, had a biofarm for cycling filters and am using filtration methods I never even knew existed for many years. I sure would say I started out with beginner fish and I am glad I did.
I do not agree that all fish need the same care and attention. I can tell you that when things get tight and I am forced to skip water changes on some tanks, this skip is not done at random. Believe it or not, zebra plecos can do OK without a few water changes but I dare you to try that with discus or fish needing very low TDS. Labyrinth fish can handle low levels of dissolved oxygen better than many other fish. And I have not even touched on dietary considerations here- feeding flake vs specialized diets.
In a nutshell, given any of the typical newbie mistakes, which fish would you want in the tank where they are made. Your answer will pretty much be the "starter" fish.
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