What I would suggest doing if you are beginner is to keep a list of the fish that you keep. Therefore when you go to consult your aquarium expert at your local aquarium shop, you can bring the list with you, allowing them to advise you what sort of fish are likely to work with your aquarium.
The first thing to consider is how aggressive the fish are. Obviously, if you put a fish into your aquarium that's more aggressive than the fish you have got, it potentially could kill some of the fish in your aquarium as well as that, if it's not aggressive as your fish, then it might get killed by the fish in your aquarium. When you are introducing the fish, this really needs to be considered.
Also, the pH of the aquarium; you don't want to keep an acid type aquarium and go putting in a fish that prefers alkaline pH, otherwise the chances of it getting sick is, of course, very high. Also, consider the amount the salt that they advise that you put in to the water and the types of food that you should be feeding them. Understand what it is that you feed your current aquarium and make sure that it is acceptable diet for the new fish that you introduce.
Most fish are opportunists, so any large fish will more than likely eat small fish. So there is, I guess, size of mouth rule where even if it's a large peaceful fish, even a gold fish, if it has got mouth large enough to eat your small fish, you can almost guarantee it's probably going to end up there.
So with this combination of fish while they are small they all will tend to get along. On the other hand, as they grow up and the personalities develop, you can have one aquarium with this same mix of fish and all the fish can/seem to get along with no problems whatsoever for years.
On the other hand, you can have another aquarium which has basically the opposite results, where some of the individuals become quite aggressive and may attack some of the other species. It's really important to monitor and watch this as its occurring.
Now, generally, it will be one instigator that will cause most of the aggression problems in your aquarium because the key is the dominant fish. If you have got a dominant fish in the aquarium which is acting slightly aggressively between most of the fish and exerting its dominance and interrupting or breaking any fights that break out between the fish, then you will find that the fish will grow up well.
On the other hand, if you have got a less observant or let's say not as good boss then, in general, there can be a lot more problems with aggression because that boss will usually be overridden and a lot of aggression can occur in the aquarium.
Every aquarium will have a hierarchy. There will be the boss, then the second boss, then all the way down to the biggest wimp. Now the boss' job should be to control the rest of the fish. If this is working properly then the hierarchy of the aquarium should not change.
On the other hand, if the boss is not controlling the rest of the ranks and the hierarchy is changing it will result in a lot of aggression being in the aquarium. So how aggressive the aquarium is governed by how many fish are in the aquarium, what type of fish are there in the aquarium, and who the boss of the aquarium is.
One of the easiest things to remember is that the younger the fish, the more compatible it tends to be with its tank mate. On the other hand, as the fish get older and get used to their ways and used to the fish they have grown up with, they tend to be less compatible with other tank mates. In some circumstances various fish work and in other circumstances those same fish just not work.
For example, fish like silver sharks, mono angels, clown loaches, scats, various sucker fish will work in one aquarium and simply not work in the other aquarium. It's really a matter of trying your aquarium and seeing how yours react to that style of fish.
In general, the larger the less compatible it is with other tank mates. If you have, for example, large Maguna (ph) or large type of African cichlid and try and introduce it with other fish, there is a much lower chance of that fish getting along because it's grown up and become accustomed to its territories, its tank mates, and is generally less able to adapt to a new environment, and is more likely to be irritable and aggressive than a smaller one, not unlike humans.
So in this aquarium, I would put silver sharks, and the loaches as being the more peaceful fish that might get picked on; on the other hand, I would be looking at things like the red scats and the mono angels as potentially being the more aggressive ones.
The color and effect can look stronger if you take a few types of fish that you like; particularly, if you like the electric yellow. You get a quite a high number of the electric yellow because when they are all together that unity is really quite striking, and that high presence of yellow will look quite powerful in the aquarium.
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