Freshwater

In This Chapter
Chapter 8
Finding Your Species
Surveying tropical freshwater fish
Looking at coldwater fish
Checking out freshwater fish and invertebrates
Focusing on several individual popular species
Buying online
Purchasing captive-bred species
When you go to purchase your new fish, you need to have a general idea
as to which species can survive in your particular type of system.
Otherwise, you may end up with a bunch of marine fish floating at the top of
your freshwater aquarium. You simply can’t mix apples and oranges in aquariums.
Save that combination for Sunday’s fruit salad.
This chapter gives you a general overview of major fish families and shows
you where they fit into each type of aquarium system. This chapter also
helps you understand special dietary and social needs of many species. Most
of the fish listed in this chapter are excellent choices for beginners. (We give
you plenty of warning about those that aren’t.)
This chapter presents you with many scientific names. A scientific name is
usually based on Greek or Latin, and uses two words. The first word is the
genus (a group of related species) that the fish fit into. The second word is
the species (a group of animals that can interbreed) within that genus. The
species name is sometimes the same as the person who first described the
fish. A named ending in i means that a man first described the fish. A name
ending in ae means that a woman first described the species. Because no one
could pronounce half of these strange names, a common name (like guppy) is
also given to each fish.
All you need to do is to memorize a few common scientific names so you can
look cool around other hobbyists.
Now that you have the scientific information, let’s move on to the important
stuff.