Just in the freshwater fish category alone, there are so many different species of fish and they each have their own little unique set of behaviors and personalities.  I think it is very important to learn as much as you can about all the different types of fish out there, and to try keeping a variety of them to see which ones you really like.

Every person will like different things so I think there is a lot of personal preference involved.  For example, the Oscars that I picked up a few weeks ago are really keeping me entertained.  There is just two of them in my tank, along with the Pleco I’ve got in there, and the two of them can be more entertaining to watch than my other tank which has over a dozen fish in it.

Today when I went to feed my Oscars, instead of eating the pellets I fed them they decided to hoard them and play with them.  Here’s a picture of one of my Oscars after it shoved like SIX pellets in it’s mouth and swam around with it’s mouth open.  It reminds me of when kids put a whole bunch of mashed potatoes in their mouth and then show you their food with their mouth open, hehe.

The other thing I noticed about the Oscars is that if I’m sitting here on my computer and I haven’t fed them yet, they eventually get tired of waiting for me and start making noises.  Sometimes they’ll just splash the water a bit to try to get my attention.  If I don’t pay attention, they’ll start to smack things in the tank.  I’m not really sure what they’re smacking, because every time I look they are off on the other side of the tank pretending like they didn’t do anything, but I know it’s them.  I think they may be hitting my filter intake pipe as it makes a CLANK sound when they hit it. 

I was also over at my brother Bart’s place today and I was checking out some of his fish and I noticed that there is a distinct difference in atmosphere in his 55 Gallon tank compared to mine.  He has a bunch of Tetra’s in there and Cray Fish, but what he doesn’t have is the Giant Danio’s and Pictus Catfish that I have in mine.  The Pictus Catfish and the Giant Danio’s I have really changed the atmosphere of my tank when I put them in.  They are both very fast swimming fish and whenever I go to sit down to watch the tank for a bit, they fly around the tank like crazy and all the other fish just go hide in the corner.  It’s really annoying.

I think I’m going to have to give them away, and I’m probably going to stick with calmer and smaller fish in that tank like the Tetra’s and Guppies I have in there now.  Maybe I’ll get an Angel Fish as well, as they are kind of neat to watch.  I also really did like my Female Betta’s before they were eaten, so maybe I’ll get some of those as well.

It’s almost impossible to figure out what kind of fish you’re going to enjoy keeping just by seeing them at the pet store, so I really think one of the best ways to figure out what you’ll want to keep is to just try picking up a couple of fish of different varieties and see what you end up enjoying.  Everyone is different and the person at the fish store will probably have a totally different preference from yours as will other aquarium hobbyists so I think it’s good to experiment on your own.

Since my last post, what I’ve done is I’ve moved my Pleco from my 55 gallon tank and put him into my 46 Gallon tank with my two Oscars.  Eventually I’ll have to make some changes as a 46 Gallon is too small for two Oscars and a Pleco but for now they seem to be getting along quite nicely.

In my other tank, I have not seen any further deaths since the massacre that took the lives of 8 of my fish in one night.  Now that my 55 Gallon is fully cycled, I might think about stocking a few more smaller fish in there but I’m kind of contemplating getting rid of my Pictus Catfish and my Giant Danio’s and just getting some slow fish.  The Danio’s and Pictus are just so skittish that it kind of ruins the mood of the tank when they go flying around at warp speed nine.

It looks like the “Aquarium Pharmeceuticals Proper pH 7.0″ did the trick of bringing my pH levels down to a neutral level around 7.0.  I’m keeping a nightly log of everything I’m doing in the tank on a daily basis and tracking the pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate levels as well as the tank temperature.

Since everything has been going OK, I decided to go out and purchase two more fish to replace the two Tiger Barbs that died and this time I wanted to get a more hearty fish that has a stronger chance of survival during the initial cycling of my tank.  I decided to go and get some Danios since I’ve read that they are really hearty.

I ended up going to King Ed’s Pet Centre and they had Giant Danios there which I thought looked really cool, so I decided to get a pair.  They are rather large, and the 20 Gallon tank I have may actually be a bit small for them eventually as they grow even bigger but I’m pretty sure that I’ll eventually be upgrading to a 45-55 Gallon tank so then they’ll definitely be fine in a tank of that size.  Worst case scenario, I can always give them to my Dad or brother after I cycle my tank and they grow too big for the tank.

Here’s a few pics I snapped of my two new Giant Danios:

I also ended up picking up 12 small guppies too because I wanted to see how well they do in the tank, and they were only $5 for 12.  They’re just babies right now so they have plenty of room in the tank.  Here’s some pictures of them:

I even managed to get a better picture of my Cherry Barb:

While at King Ed’s Pet Centre I was also checking out some of their bigger tanks.  They had a special on a 50 Gallon tank kit with a Glass Top, Hagen Aqua Clear 70 Power Filter, 200W Heater, T5 Light, Gravel and a wood stand for $399.  It’s not a bad deal, but I didn’t really like the stand and when I do end up getting a bigger tank I’ll probably end up buying the components separately as I don’t want the “cheapie” components that come with the “kit”.  Maybe if I can pick up a better stand somewhere else, I might purchase just the glass aquarium with the glass top and the T5 Light from King Ed’s Pet Centre if I can talk them into giving me a good deal.

For now, I’ve got to get my 20 Gallon cycled and keep it running properly with healthy fish.