Create a Aquarium

A Community Aquarium is a fish tank made up of different species of fish and live aquarium plants to form a well-balanced thriving community, which can co-exist with each other. Rather than one single type of fish, having different species interacting with each other in a small ecosystem and living in harmony is much more fun and entertaining. One main criteria towards setting up a successful community aquarium is that, all the fish must be compatible with each other and able to tolerate the same living condition without exhibiting aggressive behavior towards another species.


The most important prerequisite towards creating community aquarium is that one must have large aquariums to start with. Usually aquarium tank measuring 30-50 gallon is the most ideal size to begin with and all the aquarium equipments such as filter, heater, must be put in place and have the capacity to treat huge volumes of water. This will ensure easy maintenance and therefore more attention can be focused towards other aspects of maintaining the community aquarium such as careful observation for fish compatibility issues and monitoring for early signs of fish disease which is very common in large aquarium community. Be forewarned that since all of them live together, outbreak of disease is very detrimental and it could bring disastrous effect.

The key aspect towards creating successful community aquarium is the careful study and observation of fish compatibility. You must choose the right tank mates or else risk aggressive behavior or in worse case, smaller fish getting eaten by larger fish. Live aquarium plants also play an important role because they provide natural hiding place for the different species of fish and it will be much easier for them to adapt to the environment and thus avoiding stress. There are different types of community fish you can choose and basically there are few combination, which you can consider.

Types of fish recommended for community aquarium:

• The Corydoras Catfish: Pleasant little catfish, which are bottom dwellers with non-aggressive nature

• Danio: Hardy shoaling fish, which moves around in group and considered friendly fish.

• Neon tetra: Another fine specimen of shoaling fish with its neon blue horizontal color that blends well with the environment

• Guppies: Small size. Select only the males because of its colorful caudal fin. Comes in varieties of color ranging from red, blue to green.

Fish that still fits into community aquarium but with caution and care:

• Angelfish: Although their name seems to imply that it is a peaceful fish, in actual fact, the fish is known to exhibit aggressive behavior during spawning. They can also grow to be very large size

• Gouramis: Often territorial and can also grow quite large

• Tiger barb: Notorious for its fin-nipping behavior

• Red tailed black shark: Often show aggressive behavior and is very territorial.

• Goldfish: creates a lot of waste and fouls the water easily. Usually not recommended.

To avoid all these issues especially aggressive behavior, it is best that the fish should only be kept in large aquarium (best aquarium size at least 30 gallon) and even then one must still exercise extreme care and act fast to separate the small fish if things start to get worse. Read more about fish compatibility and different setup in community tank.