List of Tropical Fish for Freshwater Aquariums

When setting up a freshwater aquarium, you want to make sure that you understand which fish will get along. The last thing that you want to do is have your tank proper set up and acclimated, and then a few weeks, or even days, after adding a your initial fish, one or two start to nip and bully the others. This will severely stress out the other fish.

You want to make sure that you keep community fish with community fish, semi-aggressive with semi-aggressive, and aggressive fish with aggressive fish. But, in terms of aggressive and semi-aggressive fish, you want to make sure that you keep similarly sized fish in the tank. With aggressive fish, you want to keep one species per tank, as well.

Check out the following list of fish, so that you can figure out which fish will get along with your current fish, or which fish you want to keep in your freshwater aquarium.

Unless marked with a note, the following fish can be housed with other fish on this list without problems or concerns.

• Angelfish
• Australian Rainbowfish
• Bala (Tri-Color) Shark
• Banjo Catfish
• Black Neon Tetra
• Black Phantom Tetra
• Black Shark
• Bloodfin
• Blue Acara
• Blue Danio
• Bristlenose
• Boesmani Rainbowfish
• Boesman's Rainbowfish
• Bumble Bee Goby
• Cardinal Tetra
• Cherry Barb
• Chinese Algae Eater
• Clown Loach
• Congo Tetra
• Corydoras
• Discus *
• Dwarf Gourami
• Dwarf Loach
• Elephant Nose
• Emperor Tetra
• Festivum
• Flame Gourami
• Flame Tetra
• Giant Danio
• Green Catfish
• Glowlight Tetra

* Discus should only be housed with catfish, loaches, neon tetras, and cardinal tetras because discus are very susceptible to disease, require warmer temperatures, and eat slow and will not fight for their food.

** Only house one male Betta in an aquarium, as males will fight till the death. Sometimes two females will be aggressive towards each other, as well. When housing Betta in an aquarium, you want to avoid housing them with other fish who have long fins, such as angelfish and long fin danios. It's best to keep Betta fish with small tropical fish with short fins.

These fish will typically live ok with her fish when they're smaller, but as they age and grow, semi-aggressive fish are prone to nip and chase other fish around. It possible to keep the following list of fish in a community tank, but you want to watch the fish and the tank carefully.

• Archer
• Bleeding Heart Tetra
• Black Widow
• Buenos Aires Tetra
• Bumble Bee Catfish
• Firemouth
• Flying Fox
• Freshwater Puffer
• Green Tiger Barb
• Honey Gourami
• Kissing Gourami
• Red Tailed Shark
• Rosy Barb
• Silver Dollar
• Severum
• Swordtail
• Tiger Barb
• Tinfoil Barb

You do not want to mix the following aggressive fish with any other fist except for fish of similar size of their own kind. IE Red Oscars with Red Oscars and Butterfly Fish with Butterfly Fish.

• Black Paradisefish
• Butterfly Fish
• Convict
• Green Terror
• Jack Dempsey
• Knife Livebearer
• Red Belly Piranha
• Red Oscar