Tips for Freshwater and Saltwater Aquarium Owners: Keeping Fish in Pairs, Threes or Schools

Sometimes, with freshwater and saltwater tanks most fish will like to be kept in pairs. In some cases however, this can be disastrous. Some fish will actually attack and kill the second fish if given the chance. The worst case than I can think of is Bettas. If you place two males together they will fight until the death. In some cases the fish will do better in pairs, such as Clownfish. You will really need to do a lot of research before you place two fish together. At any rate you will want to try and get a male and female, unless they are very easily bread in captivity.

If you have a fish such as a Molly or Guppy you can keep two of them together. You can keep two males together or two females together. If you keep one male and one female you will have a lot of new babies coming soon because they breed like crazy. You will want to make sure you are getting two males or two females. If you don't want babies make sure that you don't purchase a pregnant female to begin with. If the fish are kept according to this sex you might be okay but you might want to check to make sure the females are not pregnant.

If you keep some larger catfish in a tank together they will probably eat each other. Red Tail Catfish will eat their tank mates in a flash. They will even eat fish that are their own size or bigger. It all depends on the size of the fishes mouth. You will want to be very careful when you place two fish together that are large because one might be or become aggressive. You definitely need to do a lot of research before you purchase two large fish that are fully capable of eating each other. At this rate you might only want to purchase one fish and keep it by itself in the fish tank.

Some fish do well in large schools and some don't. Some will chase everybody else around until a lot of them die. Some fish will do great in schools. Some fish are peaceful and will tolerate more of their own kind. Do not keep a large school of territorial or aggressive fish together. You need to find some sort of fish compatibility chart and print it out to see which fish can go together. Then you will need to research and see how many of these fish you can place together in a pair or by themselves.