What kind of fish should I get?

I'll let others choose your fish, but wanted to recommend against getting a frog. The albinos your saw are probably African clawed frogs. While nice when young, they will get to be 5-6 inches and capable of eating your fish.

An African dwarf frog would be a better choice, but both species are air breathers and need to surface so they won't drown. With their size, dwarves shouldn't be kept in a tank over 12 inches high, which a 55 would be.

If you want to try one still, wait 6 months after you've started the tank to add them. This will give your water chemistry a chance to settle. I'd suggest buying some floating plants (silk water lilies look nice and don't require any lighting as the live plants would). Dwarves prefer to be kept in groups, but I would hold off on getting the one any friends until you know how he does in your tank.

You have lots of options for your aquarium. Here are just a couple of suggestions.

A nice, colorful aquarium would be one full of livebearers. A mix of swordtails, platies, and guppies would be beautiful. These fish constantly have live babies, so if you went with this setup you could choose to have all males (they are easy to tell apart, they have an extra bottom fin), or just stock very lightly and let them breed!

You could also get a couple of different types of tetras (be sure to get at least 6 of each type--they are schooling fish), and some cory catfish (also a schooling fish--get at least 6) for the bottom of the tank. Generally, the larger the school of fish, the more impressive (but be careful not to overstock). I've always thought it would be beautiful to have a large planted tank with a huge school of neon or cardinal tetras--you could have about 45, and you could still have the cory cats. All of these fish come from South America.

Barbs are another colorful schooling fish--there are several different species. Look them up on the internet and see if you like them!

Cichlids--you could have a few of these--they can be very colorful. Just be sure to do your research, as they can be aggressive and territorial. Choose cichlids from one area--don't mix African cichlids with South American ones, for example. Be careful, as overstocking with these fish will lead to them killing each other.

Again, you have lots of options. The most important thing to do is research any fish before you buy it--they all have special needs, and it is your responsibility to provide for those needs. Also be sure to cycle your aquarium! (Look up "nitrogen cycle" for more information.) After it is cycled, add fish very slowly, and do 50% water changes once a week to keep your fish healthy.

For just starting out, maybe just get some different types of goldfish. You can get them in all sorts of colors and they are hardy fish.

Guppies are also a good fish, but can reproduce very quickly causing overpopulation.

The frogs are really fun to watch, but if you have small fish, the frogs may eat them.

I love black mollies, but they are also live-bearers.

I would NOT add snails as they will multiply like crazy!!

Add some live plants and lots of little hiding places. Well cleaned PVC pipe works great and it's super cheap, too.

Good luck :)

Good luck!

Well, I just got rid of my 55 gallon fish tank because I got tired of cleaning it. I kept South American Cichlids in mine. I chose to have the larger fish because they are prettier and seem to be much more active. I had a total of 5 fish in mine. My largest fish and most beautiful was my Green Terror. He was suppose to be the most aggressive but I found that he was actually the most laid back. My second fish was a Blood Parrot. She was very pretty but she was absolutely psychotic. When ever I put my hand in the tank to clean it she would rush over and try to bite me. She scared me to death. I had a Jack Dempsey and a Convict Cichlid and they were both some what aggresive. My last fish was a placotomus. He was pretty cool. The big fish have a tendency to move the rocks and things around alot so don't be shocked if you set their tank up and they rearrange it. I would have kept mine had I not had to clean it every 3 weeks. Good luck setting it up and have fun finding your fish.

you are right about the snails. They will over populate your tank I have a 75 gallon fish tank and bought 1 snail. Now I have about 50 something. Any way it just depends on what kind of fish you want to get. First off there is fresh water and then there is salt water. Salt water can be pretty dog gone expensive so I am going to think you meant fresh water. There are community fish. Semi aggresive fish, aggressive fish. Now you have to stick with one category you can not put communtiy fish with aggresicve they will be eaten.

make sure you set your tank up for at leat 2 weeks before you get fish. Or get the product called start right and add that to your tank. Make sure you have a good filtration system to.

Since this is your first fish tank I would go with community fish. DO NOT get goldfish for they put off to much ammonia.

1) I have heard of African Clawed Frogs, but I don't have any idea where they sell them.

2) Snails aren't that bad unless you let them overpopulate.

3) You can get some livebearers:

- platies

- guppies

- mollies

- swordtails

or some egglayers:

- neon tetras

- cardinal tetras

- black neon tetras

- white cloud mountain danios

- zebra danios

- pearl danios

- glowlight tetras

- serpae tetras

- black skirt tetras

- flame tetras

- black tetras

- head n tail light tetras

- lemon tetras

- garnet tetras

- buenos aires tetras

- emperor tetras

- congo tetras

or some bottom dwellers:

- red tailed sharks ( only 1)

- loaches

- algae eaters

- catfish

I did the same thing when I started my first aquarium. I hope my advice keeps you and your new fish in good health. :-)

First off do NOT get a Japanese fighting fish with other fish.

That's all black toads you should try to find one somewhere else like online. But for the fish go with what ever you want. Except the fighting fish cause it will kill the other fish

get a guppy but if you dont want little baby fishes dont get a guppy because they have babys almost all the time