# Good fish for novices besides bettas?



## BettaNewbie92 (Sep 22, 2015)

Out of curiosity, what other kinds of fish do you guys recommend as pets for a fish novice besides bettas?


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## Olivia27 (Nov 26, 2015)

Uh... Platies, black mollies or neon tetras? Maybe guppies too? I don't know, all the fishes I mentioned are the ones my family had as a kid (and survived for many years). So I'm assuming that if a clueless, "that one looks fancy I want one" person like my dad could keep them alive, then it shouldn't be that hard to care for them.


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## Fin2you (Mar 5, 2012)

neon, cardinal, diamond, black phantom, serapae tetras, Harlequin or scissortail rasbora's are great tankmates for betta's. Molly's I'm quickly falling just as madly in love with as betta's. African Dwarf Frogs are goofy little things. I also LOVE my clown pleco, leapord loach is kindda a neat "weird" what the heck is that thing in your tank (& it's a fantastic addition to a cleaning crew) Otto suckermouth catfish, fun to watch dart around cleaning algae off stuff so you don't have to. cory again cleaning crew but fun to watch dart around & they help keep your tank clean so you can watch the fish not scrub the tank!


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## jadaBlu (Feb 14, 2013)

Are you starting a new tank or keeping the fish with bettas? What size tank did you have in mind?


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## jeaninel (Aug 24, 2007)

Cardinal tetras are not really a good beginner fish. Most are wild caught and I've found they are very hard to keep alive initially. They're pretty sensitive. It took me 3 batches of cardinals to get a healthy batch that are still thriving today. Black skirts, serpae tetras, guppies, platies are good hardy fish. I'm sure there's lots more but those are the first ones that came to mind.


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## MikeG14 (May 31, 2014)

White cloud mountain minnows are a good, easy starter fish. In most cases you don't even need a heater. I wouldn't recommend putting them in anything smaller than a 10 gallon tank, a 20 long is even better.


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## bandit1994 (Sep 24, 2015)

but a lot of the white could minnows on the market are breed for feeder fish I like the barbs for new comers to the world of fish I have worked with all kinds of fish and to be honest with u I can say that he best first fish is a rosy red minnows ez to care for not a fin nipper but they do best a lagre schools of 15 or more and need a 10 gal tank for a school of five I love them but get them form a breeder not the lfs unless they rise them on site then I would get them on site I can say this if they live they are tuff in the bait world they are called tuffys that is how tuff they r I have had a lot of different fis but none catch my eye like the barbs I love tiger barbs


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## NickAu (Sep 28, 2015)

My first question is about water PH and my second is about tank size. IMO it is pointless looking at fish that live in soft water if the PH is 8 for example. 

Also do you want tank with live plants or not.


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## Aqua Aurora (Oct 4, 2013)

NickAu said:


> My first question is about water PH and my second is about tank size. IMO it is pointless looking at fish that live in soft water if the PH is 8 for example.
> 
> Also do you want tank with live plants or not.


This^ 

pH, water hardness (or softness) and your intended tank size are major factors in what you can/cannot-should not keep.
If you do not already, get a an API liquid test kit for pH as well as a liquid API GH & KH test kit. Follow directions and do the tests then put down the results somewhere so you don't forget. I suggestion would be to do 2 test: one with water straight from the tap. Another done with water drawn fro the tap and left in a clean container for several days. The reason for this is sometimes tap contains co2 which lowers pH, over a few days it off-gasses and the pH will rise. 
Its good to know if your pH changes over a few days as a tank's water will sit for days/weeks. If pH changes over a few days that means you should draw and set aside water for water changes several days before you plan to use it. Why? Because changing pH in the tank water by adding new water (with lower pH) is bad for fish, plants, and beneficial bacteria (sudden sharp changes in pH as well as temp can kill them)... now all that said my tap does not contain co2 so my pH is a constant 7.5.. its just something to keep in mind.

Some fish are adapted to much harder waters than others and won't do well in soft water (and vise versa) hence the need to test your waters hardness (with the GH and KH test) before choosing a species.

When researching fish I'd recommend looking at seriouslyfish.com for info on minimum tank sizes, pH, temperature range, and water hardness. If you make an account there you can adjust settings to show in inches instead of cm, or just plug the cm measurements into a converter (google ftw). Many of the species listed above (tetra, platies, mollies, minnows) need 20g long or larger. IMO most of them cannot be kept in a 10g or smaller tank as they can be quite active.

side note: at the time I typed this post the seriouslyfish site was down so I could not link species info on some of the above listed fish as I wanted. But when you go to the site when its up there is a search bar you can plug in a fish name to find species info. Hopefully it will be up soon.


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