Hey! So my little brother was asking for a glofish for his birthday, and my parents are considering it. Do you (or any of your followers) know anything about them? I’m a bit of a pet fan myself but I’m very unfamiliar with fish care (I only keep mammals lol) and want to make sure whatever they end up getting him thrives. Thanks!

amazingpetenclosures:

Glofish is technically a brand name, the fish themselves are either danios (left) or tetras (right). Which is important to know when you’re doing your research. Both types are schooling fish, so you need several of them. I could be misremembering, so if I’m wrong, someone please feel free to correct me! But I believe a healthy school consists of no less than seven fish. Which means that, even though the fish themselves are small, they need quite a bit of space, so you’ll need a decent sized tank and filter. They’re also tropical, which means you’ll need a heater capable of appropriately warming the size tank you get. Tetras and danios tend to be a fairly ‘easy’ type of fish, all things considered, but they’ll still need water changes and they still need specific care, so make sure to really dig deep and do that research. And, if your little brother is still quite young, keep in mind that it might be you or your parents doing most of the actual work.

It would be great if any of my followers knew a few reliable websites/forums to find fish care requirements, so if anyone has suggestions, please comment!

You’re going to need at least a 20gal tank to keep those happy, cycled, filtered, and heated. A 10g is too small, they need lots of room to move. 

The glofish as of now are: 

Zebra danios (slim fish, lengthwise stripes)

Tiger barbs (triangle-shaped fish, vertical stripes)

Skirt tetras (sort of piranha-shaped with longer fins)

and red-tail black sharks (little wiggly thing with whiskers and a down-facing mouth). 

All but the shark are schooling fish. All the schooling fish are also very active species, prone to chasing each other. You can mix them with non-Glo versions of themselves, they don’t care in the slightest.

Plantedtank.net is good for general aquarium care. Bare minimum, look up how to cycle an aquarium. 

If he wants a single fish in a smallish aquarium, a betta in a 5g tank is good. Again, filtered, heated, and cycled.

Weekly water changes, daily feeding, general monitoring for diseases, and at-least-monthly water tests are all vital parts of aquarium keeping. Also, if the brother loses interest, what happens to the fish? Flushing them down the toilet is horrendously inhumane, releasing them into “the wild” spells their doom and can introduce pathogens to the native environment, animal shelters don’t usually take fish, and Craigslist is iffy at best. Most chain pet stores don’t take fish back, but smaller ones sometimes do. Ask.