Aquarium fishes

Aquarium fishes are broadly grouped into 2 categories on the basis of their breeding behaviour, viz., egg-layers (oviparous) and livebearers (ovo-viviparous). Egg-layers are further classified as egg-layers with no care (non-guarders), egg-layers with care (guarders), egg buriers, mouth-incubators, nest-builders and egg-carriers on the basis of parental care.

Egg layers

Important group of egg-layers are barbs, rasboras, goldfish, tetras, danios, betas, angelfish and gouramis. Among them barb is one of the most important groups. Barbs of Indian origin are rosy barb, striped barb and aruli barb. The major group of danios includes gaint danio, pearl danio and zebra danio. Among rasboras slender rasbora, glowlight rasbora and scissortail are the important ones. Goldfishes are the most preferred fish for the aquarium keepers. Some common varieties being comet, lion head, oranda, red cap, veil tail, shubunkin, bubble eye etc. The fish grows up to 20 cm in length, but starts breeding when it is only 6 cm long.

The tetras are small fishes of 3-8 cm length that originated from South America. Most common varieties are the black widow tetra, flame tetra, neon tetra and cardinal tetra. The species, Betta splendens, popularly known as Siamese fighter, occurs in varied colours. The males become aggressive in presence of other males. Angelfish is an important group of aquarium fish with different varieties such as black, veil tail, marble and albino. Among gouramies, three-spot gourami, pearl gourami, moonlight gourami, giant gourami and kissing gourami are the important species.