Easiest Tropical Fish To Maintain?

[JesC929]

I'm looking at getting an aquarium, but want to know what fish, other than a betta fish is the easiest tropical fish to maintain.  I don't want to make a mistake an cause injury to a fish, so is there a specific one that you would recommend?

 

[the_lock_man]

It depends upon the size of the aquarium you have got / are getting.
 
I always found platies are pretty hardy, as are cherry barbs, cardinal tetra, pentazona barbs.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The first step in being able to answer that question depends on your water parameters. Fish come from waters all over the world and the water is not the same in them. I would like to send you to a real nice site which epxlains all this in easy to understand terms. You should read there and then ask questions:
 
http/fins.actwin.com/aquariafaq.html when you get there, click on Your First Aquarium and start reading.

 

[JesC929]

I'm just starting out, so not too big of a tank at first.  I think like a 10-20 gallon tank.  Thanks for the input, i'm going to look into those and see which one the Wife finds to be the "prettiest"...will make getting her onboard much easier.
 
thanks!

 

[Dreamer03]

Guppies are also very easy to care for. Just well they breed a lot unless you get all males or females

 

[cs9]

I have always found cherry barbs and glow light tetras to be hardy and easy to care for and the cherry barbs always seem to have great personalities!

 

[Gruntle]

I'm happiest at the moment with my Cherry Barbs. Hardy, colourful and seem to breed without me doing anything (somehow I now have 13 having started with 9 females after my male succumbed to a house move).

 

[sadguppy]

Guppies in my experience keel over a lot for no reason, they're short lived and everything bullies them. Platies are better and hardier.
I've got cardinal and glowlight tetras, pentazona barbs and cories that have outlived everything else in the tank but the shoalers don't have as much 'personality' or variety as platies. Love a platy.

 

[DeanoL83]

Guppies in my experience keel over a lot for no reason, they're short lived and everything bullies them. Platies are better and hardier.
I've got cardinal and glowlight tetras, pentazona barbs and cories that have outlived everything else in the tank but the shoalers don't have as much 'personality' or variety as platies. Love a platy.

 
Yes I have a community tank with guppies, platies, mollies, tetras etc and the guppies are the only ones which have died.   The people I got my tank from also told me that they had issues keeping guppies as well.  The platies, mollies and tetras are all doing well though  

 

[Lunar Jetman]

I think part of the reason guppies seem less hardy these days is the constant inbreeding that goes on. The best way would be to try and get fish from different sources but even then there is no guarantee they will last longer. I started off fishkeeping with guppies about 25 years ago and although they're considered 'easy' to keep due to the varied range of water perameters they seem to be able to cope with I've never found them to last all that long. If you want to watch a fish life cycle they're good to keep being prolific breeders but there are other live bearers such as Platies (Mollies too but never kept them myself) that seem a bit hardier at times.

Just as an aside, my daughter has just had some Swordtails added to her tank so am interested to see how they go.

 

[nofishinginmytank]

I own 5 male guppies and have never had any problems

but I would say if you dont want them to breed and be overcrowded then its best to get all males because most likely the females have been with males and could already be pregnant. Platies are pretty, hardy little fish, I have 2 females although they can be a little shy at first, they make nice little fish and theres lots of different colour verities and the guppies come in many pretty colours too

I also find dwarf gouramis are lovely fish, I had 4 male gouramis as my first tropical fish and i found that they were fairly easy to care for and were full of character and always made me laugh

Neon tetras are good too

fairly hardy and pretty little fish but they do almost all look the same if that matters

Hope I helped a bit

  

 

[Gvilleguy]

Please make sure you caught what TwoTank said - before you can discuss what fish are right (and easy to care for) in YOUR tank, you have to consider the water parameters! I love guppies and have even tried them in my tanks. But guppies do not survive for long in my 6.0 pH, zero KH water. I instead have to skew toward the tetra / cichlid side of the spectrum to find fish that are easy to care for, and will thrive in my tanks.

 

[nofishinginmytank]

Yes I agree with what TwoTank and Gvilleguy said 

 

[Cadevan]

When I started I had, guppies, platies, and swordtails and the like. But I have hard water. For soft water try some neon tetras or other inexpensive tetras. These type of fish are generally small, like schooling, and colourful

 

[dopieopie]

I've found harlequin rasbora to be very easy to keep.