Fish, for Both

My favorite pets in the world are fish.

My least favorite pets in the world are fish.

Two things can be true. You just have to know what kind of pet owner you are before you go to the store. You have to do research by watching fish vloggers on YouTube, because traditional advice is backwards. The perfect starter aquarium for a child is 55 gallons, not five or 10.

Think about it.

It only takes a tiny change to ruin the environment for the fish in a five gallon. You have no forgiveness. It’s the difference between a teaspoon of salt in your coffee and a teaspoon of salt in your bathtub. One registers more than the other simply due to volume.

Goldfish are also sold as starter fish, and the reality is that they are some of the nastiest, most human-dependent fish on earth because they need constant water changes. They’re also not good for beginners because they just grow and grow and grow. Everyone knows about the small goldfish that get flushed down toilets worldwide. But no one hears about when goldfish keeping goes well….. your goldfish will turn into a Buick within a couple years and you’ll think you’re cleaning up after a dog by the amount of waste on the bottom of the tank.

By doing actual research on YouTube, you can find a nice 55-gallon setup that needs next to no maintenance, often mixing in live plants so that the entire environment is enclosed. I am currently “cheating,” in that I would desperately love to have an aquarium but can’t, so I play one on my very large HD TV.

It’s a hobby I’d like to get back into when I move, though. Right now, there’s no real way to accommodate an aquarium in my apartment because there’s no plumbing close enough to where I could keep the tank to run a Python (hose/cleaning tool). Cleaning an aquarium is so much easier when the sink is doing the drain and fill for you. It also makes cleaning a 55-gallon tank take about 10 minutes start to finish. No more carrying buckets of water back and forth from sink to tank.

I have had community tanks before, and they’ve always done well. I’ve also raised goldfish that got to be too big for their tank and I had to sell them back. Again, goldfish aren’t bad. They’re just labor-intensive. They’re not as cute as advertised.

They shit a lot.

A lot.

If that’s the only thing you remember from this essay, it’s worth it. Because their waste is exactly what makes them a drag. You’re not really enjoying them. You’re cleaning up after them. And anything that you could put in the tank that would filter the water, like plants, they’ll rough ’em up.

So go easy on yourself and get some Tetra. Get a large enough tank that every little thing doesn’t rock the boat. Make the tank visually interesting, and let your mind wander.

There’s no limit to the ideas that will swim up toward the surface.