Talk:List of freshwater aquarium fish species

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I started adding some structure to the listing, mainly grouping by family. Expansion with more species would imho be better to place in articles on the respective families. -- OlofE

Maybe the list should be just a hiearchy down to the level of families and sub-families/logical groups? For instance, instead of a dozen cichlid species, maybe just say something like this for the cichlid node of the tree:

• Cichlidae
  • African Cichlids
  • American Cichlids

One downside with this is the list is supposed to be targeted towards aquarists but a family page won't be. -- [[User::Zhyla|Zhyla]]

actually, splitting cichlids between american and african might really help aquarists because it is easier to keep african cichlids with african cichlads and americans with americans, they are less likely to beat on each other. and then the african cichlids could even be split up by native lake.. i'm still learning about cichlids but that is what we keep. ours aren't even listed yet, but if/when i find out what they are i will take pictures and add them. we only have african ones.Loosgroov 23:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, a list grouped by family is most useful, because even if a specific fish is not on a list or in a reference book, similar fishes will be easier to find. Listing by region is less helpful, and an alphabetical listing (whether by scientific name or, worse, common name) is useless -- and yes, I do have a book arranged that way. On another note, maybe instead of just a list there could be section headings for each family, which would generate a table of contents. Ginkgo100 23:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Using the table

I'm converting the list to the table format just like the one used for List of marine aquarium fish species. Also I'm adding a picture of each fish if it's available in wikipedia. This is a lot of editing works but at the end it should help readers. Sorry for the inconvenience if you find this format harder to edit.--Melanochromis 07:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I like these changes. The plain list was close to meaningless. --Ginkgo100 ^talk 15:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent job, Melanochromis. I know you are putting painstaking hours into fixing this. This list is easy to read and user-friendly. And I'm working on that rosy-red minnow pic. --Terrapin83 24:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Where do these fit?

Where would a Peacock gudgeon fit on this page ? Thanks. JimmyOrangeSeed (talk) 06:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

the pleco situation

This is supposed to be a list of species. But when it comes to the suckermouth catfish, species list is simply not possible and not practical as their taxonomy is not well-structured and many fish share the same common names. So I mostly list the genera instead of species unless it's a well known species. And I doubt an average fish keeper would need to know more than the genus level anyway. --Melanochromis 08:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

kissing gourami

the link to kissing gourami actually takes you to black ghost knife fish. This should be addressed sometime soon.--Terrapin83 10:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

thanks for pointing it out. I already corrected it. --Melanochromis 13:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Common names are not capitalized

Just want to remind people that fish common names are not capitalized (with a few exceptions). It's neon tetra, not Neon Tetra. See the guidelines of common names and scientific names here. PS. the scientific names in the list will probably have to be italicized.

--Melanochromis 06:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Please keep description short

I don't think it should be longer than 10-30 words. Personally, I even want to change "description" to "remarks". Things that should be in the description are:

• Possible confusion with other species (and ways to identify them)
• Strains, breeds, subspecies, or hybrids
• Warnings (legal status, dangers to keepers, etc.)
• Brackish/marine nature (some fishes commonly sold as "freshwater" fishes are actually brackish or marine; some other "freshwater" fishes migrate to brackish/marine when older)

Other aquarium care information should be added to the articles, not to the list. --Melanochromis 23:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, "description" has already become "remarks". I hope this will help with the length control. --Melanochromis 13:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The ones on Chinese Fighting Fish and Myxocyprinus asiaticus are FAR too long to my jaundiced eye!--BCS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.98.225.118 (talk) 09:15, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Addition of more rainbowfish

Their is a Boeseman's Rainbowfish, Praecox Rainbowfish, Lake Katubu Rainbowfish, Madagascan Rainbowfish, Australian Rainbowfish and Threadfin Rainbowfish.CorreyBonnick 17:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Madagascar rainbowfish are not in the Melanotaeniidae (Rainbowfishes) or **Pseudomugilidae (Blue-eyes) families and are thus not classified as true Rainbowfish. They belong in the Bedotiidae (Madagascar rainbowfishes) family. Same goes with Celebes rainbowfish, which belong to the Telmatherinidae (Sailfin Silversides) family. They should not be put with Rainbowfishes. Also, there is no "Australian" rainbowfish. That is a blanket name that has been given commercially to at least four different species of bows in the Melanotaenia genera. ** still some controversy, however their placement with rainbowfishes is widely accepted

Rainbowfish common names

Hrm, a lot of the bows are listed with the wrong common names. It stands to reason that if Werner, who first discribed Glossolepis incisus in 1908 as the Salmon-Red rainbowfish, had wanted it named "Red rainbowfish" he would have stated as thus. Same thing goes for the "Dwarf neon rainbowfish" -- it's a Neon rainbowfish sans Dwarf. If no one objects, I'll fix them and list a few. As an aside, quoted sizes I will add to the lists are known sizes reported by rainbowfish hobbyists such as myself and won't even come close, in some respects, to what fishbase may have. Bows are known to grow larger in the tank than they do in the wild. As an example, the much lauded size of 3" max for M. boesemani is far from the 6" it can grow to if it lives 10 years in captivity. My boesemani are about 1½ years old and all are close to 3.5" already Roan Art 02:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Roan Art, you seem to be more knowledgeble on rainbowfish tham most of us. So, I'd say you should just go ahead and edit the list as you see fit. Here's a couple of reminders:

• This list should be consistent with the taxonomy in Fishbase and other articles in wikipedia
• Don't put every existing species, just the ones that are common in the aquarium trade.
• "Description" section in the list is more like remarks. If you have a lot to add, you might wanna consider creating species article.

Have fun with the list. --Melanochromis 04:30, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Rainbowfish locales

Another comment: rainbowfish of the same species can look totally different depending on the locale they are from. For instance, my Melanotaenia affinis are Pagwi, from Goo obo Falls in PNG and they do not bear much of a resemblance to the Bluewater Creek or Standard variety. There are no less then ten different variations of Melanotaenia trifasciata (and more could be discovered in the future). YOu can see them here, 'cause I'm not gonna type them all out ;) :

http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Trifas.htm

Commercial fisheries have a nasty habit of selling bows with their locale as their common name (ie: Goyder River rainbowfish instead of Regal rainbowfish, Goyder River). It is very important that these locales be noted and tracked by hobbyists/breeders and that people be encouraged not to hybridize the fish. Can a new column be added to the rainbowfish section for locale? Roan Art 02:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

What about mentioning different colorations in the "description" section? --Melanochromis 04:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Gourami's

How about adding the Thick-Lipped Gourami to the Gourami list.CourtneyBonnick 01:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hatchetfish

I was just passing through, looking up fish info, and noticed that the Black-winged Hatchetfish wasn't listed. I added it, and filled in the info for it and the Marbled. I'm a big fan of the Black-winged.  ;) I like Pencilfish a lot as well, and might be back to flesh that out sometime. Pencilfish are super shy, but can swim backwards.  :) Thanks for the cool Wiki page! --Dulcimerist 04:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Parachromis dovii

Added under other cichlids as I can't determine the fish's origins from work.

Flying Fox

The link for the fish "flying fox" redirects to the article about the mammals (flying foxes). Please edit the redirection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Betawarrior60 (talk • contribs) 17:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Lsuacner (talk) 19:59, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Where are the livebearers? (Guppies etc.)

Why aren't the guppies, mollies etc listed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.91.9.93 (talk) 23:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Someone removed the section, why was it removed?--HighFlyingFish (talk) 03:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I put the section back, please explain why it was renmoved. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 05:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

More columns

Shouldn't there be columns in the tables for things like pH, temperature, and water hardness? Also, the sorting function would be nice in these tables (eg. so users can sort the groups and see which ones are the biggest). Abyssal (talk) 13:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Did the sorting.--HighFlyingFish (talk) 22:23, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Should I add a hardness column? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 02:41, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:47, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

more rasboras

Boraras_brigittae might be a nice one to add to the Rasboras section. I'll try to expand it's page a bit. ATuin-hek (talk) 12:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Adding the Photos

Well I have nothing really better to do, I'll start adding the photos to the fish in the db. Many are missing but we have photos of almost all. If anyone wants to join in, start from the bottom and I'll go from the top and meet half way! King (talk) 23:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I suspect no one else will be doing it, but by all means go for it! --Tryptofish (talk) 23:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Expansion

I believe that the "remarks" category as well as others that sometimes have nothing for some species. Furthermore, the wording for some of the "remarks" categories needs to be changed because it has an amateur tone where it should be more like an encyclopedia entry. Anyone agree? --GouramiWatcher ^(Gulp) 01:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure. WP:BEBOLD. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Care level?

I am concerned about the care level column. Things like aquarium size, pH and hardness are all objective facts that can be cited and quantified, but "care difficulty" depends highly on the person, and is merely a subjective reflection of the above factors, so any estimates are likely to be uncited and uninformative original research. So I would suggest removing the care level column, and adding pH, hardness and aquarium size columns instead, to increase the objectivity and verifiability of this list. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 19:03, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Missing from the List

How about these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_butterflyfish — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iambarryr2 (talk • contribs) 22:51, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Care Level

Should this page even have a "care level" column? I feel like care level is subjective and ill defined, and thus is Wikipedia:Original research, and fails Wikipedia:NOTHOWTO. Additionally, it clutters up an already complicated and hard to read table. Every care level given here is unsourced. I don't see that column turning into anything useful. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 09:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Apparently I posted the same thing 2 years ago... When/if I have time, I'll be WP:BOLD and remove it. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

"Tank Type" Sections

After @Antrogh: took the initiative to start removing "Care Level" columns (see discussion above), I finished that. Now I would like to ask the community about another column that's been bugging me: "Tank Type". Unlike things like pH, Hardness or Temperature Range, Tank Type is hard to verify, and indeed, all entries in that column are unreferenced. While some species notoriously don't get along well with others, all fish coexist in the wild, so evidently an expert-enough aquarist could keep anything in a big enough community tank. Overall "tank type" seems pretty subjective, hard to source adequately and WP:HOWTO. But what do you think? Should that column be next? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 08:20, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't respond to the earlier discussions, but I think that you raise a good point. It's a close call about tank type, and WP:AQUAHOWTO is relevant, but I'm inclined to err on the side of removing stuff that veers towards how-to, so I'd be inclined to remove it. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:42, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems bizarre. Why are these the tank types, and not things like "freshwater river" or "blackwater"? There's a lot that needs to be gotten rid of in articles about aquarium fishes. Antrogh (talk) 03:02, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Disagreement between sources

Many sources on these fish disagree with each other. For instance, the size listed here for the Senegal bichir (no source given) is not the same as the one from Fishbase. Which sources do we trust in these disputes? Antrogh (talk) 03:13, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Well in a dispute between source (Fishbase) and no source, go with the source IMO. If two sources are in dispute, depends on the sources. Fishbase is pretty good though, and tends to be up-to-date. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 05:19, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone know who made the list originally? There were almost certainly sources involved, especially in the case of involved commentary like what there is about the size of the Senegal bichir, but finding them now is difficult. Knowing where the citations came from would help. Antrogh (talk) 02:18, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Here's the first edit, which can be found from the page history: [1]. Generally, if sources aren't cited now, they probably weren't cited before. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Size vs. maximum length

Could we change the label of the box from "Size" to "Maximum length"? Maximum length is far more easily found on Fishbase, from what I've seen, and just saying "Size" is ambiguous about whether we mean size at maturity, size for males or females, size at death, etc. Antrogh (talk) 02:22, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

If there is sourcing that actually says it's the "maximal length", then yes, keeping in mind that there tend to be, well, "fish stories" about anomalously large individuals that are unrepresentative. Otherwise, an option would be to leave it at "size", but with a footnote from where it says "size" in the header, that indicates that it is "size at maturity". --Tryptofish (talk) 17:56, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Fishbase tends to list maximum size, with question marks for size at maturity. I've only found one source with a specific size at maturity so far. (Granted, I haven't worked on sourcing very much of this list yet.) Antrogh (talk) 23:51, 12 December 2017 (UTC)