This tropical fish breeding article is a follow up from a previous post entitled “Setting Up A Fish Tank | How To Prepare A Brand New Fish Tank“.

Tropical fish breeding is one of the best hobbies to undertake. The sight of these colorful creatures lazily swimming to and fro in the aquarium is very relaxing and is the best cure to a stressful day at work. Believe me, once you sit in front of a fish tank observing these creatures chase each other about and play, time just passes by and so does all your worries.  All this make tropical fish breeding just worth the while.

Tropical Fish Breeding

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But if you’re thinking of tropical fish breeding and have never done it before, you might be wondering how hard tropical fish breeding can be. After all, just scanning the internet and reading the millions of posts out there about UV Sterilizers and Biological Filter and Protein Skimmers will definitely scare away anyone wanting to indulge in tropical fish breeding.

But it really is not as hard as you might imagine. And once you have the hang of it, it is actually simpler than caring for a dog or cat. If you’re just starting on this hobby, it is a good idea to start off with an easy fish first. Yes, there are easy fish and there are fish that are hard to care for. The easy ones are hardy, generally passive and don’t require much maintenance. In this post, we will look at some of the best fish to get started with.

1) Tropical Fish Breeding:  Guppies

This is one of the easiest fish to breed. Guppies originate from Asia, and in Malaysia where I am from, you can find these fish in drains and ditches everywhere. What you do need to know is the difference between a male and a female guppy. Male guppies are absolutely gorgeous with long colorful tails while the female guppies are a plain grey or brown with no colors at all. Most people go for only the male cos they’re beautiful and then wonder why they don’t breed…. go figure.

Then there’s also the fact that the males always want to mate and will spend the entire day chasing a female until they’re satisfied. So having too many males and not enough females is really a bad idea.

Lastly, if you plan to breed them, you have to separate the females once they are pregnant which is easy to notice cos their stomachs are more bloated than normal. Guppies give birth to their young live, they don’t lay eggs and they have the tendency to eat their young so separate the adults as soon as the fry are born.

Other than this, guppies are very easy to care for. They’ll survive even if you don’t have a filter or proper aeration. But they do need a little warmth since they do come from a warm climate.  One of the easiest tropical fish breeding types.

2) Tropical Fish Breeding:  Tetra

Tetras are small fish that come in a variety of color. There are the orange ones that have black fins and a black spot on their sides. There is also the the silver ones that have black tip fins with two horizontal stripes across them. But the ones I love are the neon tetra which have a bluish or reddish stripe across their sides that seem to glow especially with the aquarium lights on. Tetras get along with any fish and if you have a school or them it is so cool to watch them swim in sync with each other. They never grow more than an inch long at most and make nice small fish to start off with. It’s hard to tell the male from the female so just grab some and hope for the best.

3) Tropical Fish Breeding:  Danios

Danios are also called Zebra Fish because they have black or silver horizontal stripes. The males and females look the same so they too are hard to tell apart. Danios are passive fish that will never bother other fish and they are very playful, chasing each other and zipping across the tank like they were playing tag.

There is also another variation of Danios with spots instead of stripes which is fondly known as Leopard Danios. It really doesn’t matter if you mix the two cos they get along well with each other.

These are the three easiest fish for tropical fish breeding if you are a beginner. Low maintenance and hardy, these fish survive even the worst tank conditions and will give you endless hours of relaxation.

Learn More About Tropical Fish Breeding

From tropical fish breeding, let’s move on to solving a cloudy fish tank.