The Best Pet Fish For Beginners

Introduction

When you obtain an aquarium you want the health benefits and you also want pets. Any type of aquarium fish will give you health benefits, but which of them will be a pet for you.

Definition Of Pet

Lets first define what we are talking about. Pet is usually defined as a domestic animal kept for companionship, interest and amusement. Keeping fish as pets fall into all these categories with probably the exception of companionship.

Companionship is a relationship between two or more people or animals. So what fish give you companionship? Kissing Gourami! They are called Kissing Gourami because they are constantly puckering their lips.

My Fish

Why did I pick the Kissing Gourami as the best pet fish? Well there are several reasons for this selection.

First in my 75-gallon aquarium I have four different species of fish. I have:

Tiger Barbs - These are schooling fish and usually stay in their schools and do not socialize. In fact, if they were not in a school, they will hide in a corner becoming very introverted and would probably die. So they do not make good pets.

African Featherfin Catfish - These are bottom-feeding fish. They are very shy and hide most of the day. They come out of their hiding places only to eat and mate. Because you never see them, they will not make good pets.

Piecos - These are bottom-feeding fish also. Every now and then they come to the surface to grab a morsel of food, but mainly stay on the bottom. They too are anti-social so will not make a good pet for you.

Kissing Gourami - These are pink in color, swim at mid level and rise to the surface to eat fish flakes and to get a breath of air. But they make good pets.

Why The Kissing Gourami

I picked the Kissing Gourami as the best pet fish for the following reasons:

Greetings - Whenever I enter my office, where I have my aquarium, they always greet me. They come to the side of the aquarium and throw me kisses. The other fish I have do not do this; they do not even recognize my presence.

Feeding - It is quite exciting to feed these fish. They seem to know when it is feeding time because when I show them the box I have their food in they get excited. Plus as I drop the fish flakes in the aquarium, they will actually come up and take the food out of my hand.

Conclusion

If you want a pet fish I would highly recommend the Kissing Gourami because they are affectionate and you can almost pet them when you feed them.

J.W. Chase is an amateur Aquarist who has successfully been keeping aquariums for over 35 years. Over 75% of people who start aquariums fail in the first month for lack of knowledge. If you want more information on how to keep an aquarium, go to his web site and download a free eBook on "15 Tips On Building And Maintaining An Aquarium" at http://www.squidoo.com/homefreshwateraquariums.