10 Best Aquarium Fishes for Beginners

Keeping an aquarium at home offers many health benefits like reducing blood pressure and stress levels. Also, the room you place it in, automatically starts looking more attractive and livelier.

If you are keeping an aquarium for the first time, then freshwater species will make an ideal choice. They are easier to take care of, and these critters are more forgiving to the mistakes that you may make as a beginner.

There are many freshwater species that you can keep in your tank, but few of them make a better choice for first-time aquarium keepers. Without further wait, let us get to learn about 10 best aquarium fishes that are a perfect choice for beginners.

Neon Tetras

Neon tetra

Known for their blue bodies with bright red stripes, Neon Tetras are one of the most popular freshwater species. They are thin, small, and very easy to take care of.

Neon Tetras do not even grow too long and reach only about 2.2 cm in length. They are calm and peaceful by nature and do best when you keep them in groups and aquariums with plants, rocks, and other accessories that they can use to hide.

Mollies

Mollies
Neon Orange Molly Fish (wikipedia).

Mollies are easygoing and small and you will not have to do much to take care of them. They grow around 3-4 inches long and look quite attractive.

Mollies are omnivores and will thus eat other animals and plants as well. What is immensely attractive about these fishes is that they are livebearers. Their eggs develop in their bodies itself and come out as live fry.

Since these fishes love to breed, you must keep only one gender if you have a small tank and do not want too many of these fishes.

Guppies

Guppies
Wild male and female guppies (wikipedia).

Guppies too make a great choice for beginners. There are not fussy but they can breed with each other pretty fast if you do not keep the genders separately.

You can find Guppies in many colors, and the males look more attractive than females. These fishes have lively personalities and can easily adapt to many water conditions. This is in fact what makes them so popular among novice aquarists.

Goldfish

Goldfish Best Aquarium Fishes for Beginners

This is yet another extremely popular freshwater fish. They can grow nearly 14-inches long in the wild and 5-inches in aquariums and look very attractive. Some Goldfishes are even known to live for more than 25 years.

You need an aquarium of at least 20-gallons if you want to house these fishes. But since they are low maintenance you have nothing to worry about. All you have to do is use a good filter, and change water on a weekly basis.

Betta Fish

Betta Fish
Betta Fish

Also called the Siamese Fighting Fish, the Bettas are yet another good choice for your fish tank. You can find them in different colors and they are mostly easy-going.

However, Betta fishes are aggressive and territorial by nature when kept with other species, particularly males. It will be a good idea to keep only Bettas in your aquarium, or if they are peaceful, you can house them with other fishes as well.

Golden Dwarf Barbs

Best Aquarium Fishes
Golden Dwarf Barbs.

Though these fishes are not well-known, they do make a good choice for beginners. They grow nearly up to 1.5-inches long and you can recognize them easily because of their golden colored body with black markings.

Golden Dwarf Barbs do best in aquariums with plants. Just one thing you need to remember is not to place more than 5 of these fishes in your aquarium.

Angelfish

Best Aquarium Fishes
photo via thesprucepets

Angelfish, a part of the Cichlid family, can grow nearly 8-inches tall. They are gorgeous and you can find them in many different patterns and colors.

Angelfish can eat other animals like shrimps and insects and also plants.  It will be best to keep them away from any small fishes.  In fact, you should not keep too many fishes with them as they have an aggressive and territorial nature.

Platies

Rainbow Platy (male)
Rainbow Platy (wikipedia)

Platies are freshwater fishes that you will find in many exotic colors. They generally are peaceful fish and can thrive in most communities.

You can easily keep Platies along with Mollies and Guppies. Feeding them is also not very difficult. You can give them a combination of proteins and plant-based foods. Meat-based foods are also good for them, so do feed them that as well.

Zebra Danios

Best Aquarium Fishes

Zebra Danios are yet another ideal inhabitant for your very first aquarium. They are low maintenance, small, and grows only approximately 5 to 7 cm. As they are schooling fish, you must keep them in groups, or else they can easily get stressed.

These little fishes love eating insects, crustaceans, and worms. You can even feed them the normal fish flake food. One important thing to remember is that the Zebra Danios can easily jump out of your tanks, so make sure you always keep them covered.

Rainbow Fish

Rainbow Best Aquarium Fishes

Rainbow fishes are also quite common among beginners because they are easy to take care of. They come in vibrant colors, but you will not be able to notice it until the Rainbow fishes reach their adulthood.

These fishes are quite shy and usually peaceful with other fishes like Tetras and Barbs. So, you will not really have any difficulty placing them in your first-time community aquarium.

To Conclude –

Fishes are not as expressive as other pets like dogs and cats, but they certainly are beautiful and precious. Once you have an aquarium in your home, you will not be able to keep yourself away from watching your beautiful fishes swimming here and there and glee. It will bring a lot of positivity and completely change the aura of your home.