Top 7 WORST Beginner Fish! (BEWARE)

With gouramis, I was more trying to emphasise that you should avoid keeping them together. Didn’t come across that way in the video so sorry if you got confused! ❤️

We had a cichlid that lived to be 33 years old. He killed every single tank mate he ever had. Ironically, his name was Sweety.

I am amazed at my common pleco Houdini. He is 13 years old and literally feet long. He is huge. Noone warned me when I first purchased him just how big he would get. I went through a lot of tanks before just ordering a one that takes up my entire living room wall. He is very happy with all of his space

This is so helpful for new tank owners. The chain pet shops rarely have anyone that can advise you on fish (or anything else), and it's so easy for people to go into a shop and get totally sucked in by the variety of fish. Thank you for being so thorough and honest about these things. Much respect!

I wish i'd known about the issues with guppies before getting into the hobby, i was very disheartened when they kept dying to diseases and infections. Thankfully i stuck to it and eventually got different fish instead

In my humble opinion there are a lot worse beginner fish out there. What most people forget is that they have to research EVERY fish they will ever buy. I'm 25 years in the hobby and I still do this for every fish I have never kept.

I agree with you Gouramis can be aggressive but you got something completely wrong in saying Honey Gouramis are the most aggressive. Actually they are the most peaceful ones.

I had four blue gouramis in my first tank and they were pretty peaceful during the almost 10 years they lived with me. They had their favourite spot in the tank around one big plant where all of them chilled together most of the time, and they only chased off other fish if they wandered under their plant, which was never a problem since there was enough of space in the rest of the tank, so other fish just learned to avoid that particular spot. So I'd say a lot of the aggressivity issues stem from people not having big enough tanks for all their fish to settle.

My first fish tank when I was 8, the shopkeeper conviced my mom to buy 2 angels 2 golfish and a pleco for my 10 gallon aquarium. Needless to say how it went down.

100% Agree on the guppy. They just die for "seemingly" no reason. Its just discouraging people that wanna get into the hobby. When you get guppys these days, best bet is to get a pregnant female and hope it lives long enaugh till it gives birth. The Babys that are born in your tank are then almost indestructable.

I'm just gonna say that while other gouramis may be more aggressive, honey gouramis are amazing community fish and I would totally recommend them to beginners. The only thing is that thick lipped gourami often gets mislabeled as honey gourami and if you accidentally mix the two species the honeys will get bullied by the bigger and more aggressive thick lipped gourami.

My kids won goldfish at a school fair. I went from a 3 gallon tank (filters, not a bowl) to a 36 gallon tank in the 2.5 years we had them. They are really dirty fish (but they were pretty). Thankfully I found someone who has a pond who took them off my hands. Now I am getting that 36 gallon tank ready for some nice tropical fish. I enjoyed the goldfish but I had no idea how big they could get and how fast they dirtied the water.

You should include Tiger Barbs on the list, highly active and beautiful, but so aggressive to each other.

Honey gouramis are very peaceful fish. I have a pearl in a community tanks and no problems at all.

I think you mixed up honey gouramis with gold gouramis. Honey gourami: very small and usually very chill. Gold gourami: gets to a decent size and tends to be territorial.

I once put an Angel fish in a 50 gallon tank that I also had a small Bluegill and an Oscar about the same size as the Bluegill. At the time the Bluegill kinda bossed the Oscar around ( chasing him out of favorite resting spots and kinda bullying him at feeding time) but the Angel Fish that was smaller than both immediately became boss of the tank!

Haven't kept fish in a long time but when I was younger I used to keep both tropical freshwater and saltwater fish. Yeah I can agree with this list for the most part, you wouldn't think goldfish would be included but yeah they're not good for beginners at all. Couple others worth mentioning though. 1. Clown Loach: They look beautiful but require a large aquarium when they're young they're small but can grow up to a foot in length (30cm) So a large aquarium is required. 2. Puffer Fish, for experienced keepers who know what they're doing, these fish can be great to own, they are intelligent and can be very playful, and even have their own distinctive behavior, but require very specific care, there are both freshwater and saltwater species but other then that consideration the same rules still apply. 3. Pleco fish: Algae eaters that can grow up to 20 inches in length, unless you have an aquarium in the 150 gallon range at minimum, don't even try it, they can also live up to 15 years, so these fish require a long term commitment. 4. Bettas (Siamese fighting fish) damn these fish are beautiful and damn they're also aggressive. We've all seen these kept in little bowls at the store by themselves with no filtration, heater or room to swim, do not ever keep a fish in such horrible living conditions please. 5 gallons is a decent size tank but do not keep them in a community tank and please for the love of Neptune, don't keep 2 males together in the same tank unless you want to see the aquatic fish version of a UFC or MMA bout. Keeping females together is fine, but I hate to say they don't have the vibrant color patterns the Males are known for. They're also not known for their parenting skills, after mating you should separate the Male and Female, the male will build a bubble nest for the eggs but afterwards when the babies hatch they're on their own because neither will care for the babies when they hatch, they'll be on their own. 5. Barbs: more specifically Tinfoil Barbs, their bigger then other common Barbs (around 10 inches larger) and they thrive in groups so they can't be kept in smaller aquariums like their other relative Barb species keep that in mind.

I definitely agree with guppies not being particularly suitable as beginners fish but for entirely different reasons. Most beginner have no idea just how productive they can be. One female guppy might drop a litter of maybe 30 fish every month, that's roughly one fish per day. If you're not careful you can quickly become overwhelmed. I dropped 4 large adult females and 2 males into a 40 gallon tub on my patio for the summer. When I drained it out 5 months later I had over 400 in there.

I had Balla Sharks, Oscars, convicts, placo and dalmatian mollies in tanks as a kid. I had no clue why they kept dying as a child.

Thank you SO much for posting this video!! I've ALWAYS wanted a Pterygoplichthys Multiradiatus also known as Pleco Catfish, but it can grow up to 23 inches-2 feet long, and I can't have a tank more than 10 gallons in my apartment. So thank you for suggesting the Bristlenose Pleco cuz they look VERY similar to what I've always wanted, but they grow up to 3-5 inches! WHOOHOO! YOU just made my day!