Advantages of Having Fishes as Pets

I've always been a fish lover since I was in grade school and I remembered when I was in high school, I always try to be thrift in spending my allowance just to buy some more fishes every weekends. But during college, all of them, except my two janitor fish, just died one by one since I no longer have time to care for them. But after I graduated and had a job, I decided to have fishes again as my pets. Actually, I also do love to have reptiles at home but they are expensive and I'm sure it will make my mom freak out so I think I will just settle for fishes for now.

Having fishes like any other pets makes you relax, because its very soothing to watch them swim and they have actually have a lot of advantages over having other domesticated and furry animals.

First of all fishes are less expensive to buy and low maintenance pets. Unlike furry pets, you don't need to visit a veterinarian regularly and fish medications are a lot cheaper. It is also less traumatic to see a floating dead fish once in a while than seeing your dog or cat lying dead in your house. hahaha.

Secondly, fishes don't require that much tender loving care. Its perfect for those busy people because fishes don't need to be walked around, bathed or to be taught to have a proper toilet training. You also don't need to deal with noise like barking or wailing at night. All you need is enough space for them to swim freely, little amount of food, clean water and that's it.

Third, cleaning is also a lot easier, you just have to clean your aquarium and for my concrete ponds, I just siphon the dirt that settles at the bottom then replace the water twice a month, with furry animals, you have to clean your place every day from fur that they leave behind.

But having fishes can also be addicting, you always want to have more, to have different kinds of breed and to have a bigger specie but unlike when I was in high school, I now only have a few kinds of fishes, until maybe I can add more fish tanks, hehehe.

my bettas

carp and shubunkin

double tails

my red pacu and 11 year old janitor fish

sword and mollies

My Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish)

Because I have fishes for pets, about a month ago, a friend who is interested with bettas asked me if I do have any idea about them because he wanted to have them as pets together with his tortoise, during that time I don't have any interest in taking care of bettas since you can't group them or place them in a community tank.
Since I know where to buy cheaper fishes and its just a block away from my place I volunteered to buy for him and temporarily take care of them until the weekend. But after a few days of watching them, I decided to buy some for myself because they are so colorful and beautiful to watch.
As a rule in taking care of bettas, you should never put male bettas together for they will fight, sometimes to death so I placed them individually on empty soda bottles. But later on, I feel pity for them because they can't move freely so I decided to transfer them to my aquarium, and as of now I have 16, six males and ten females all in my 20 gallon aquarium. At firts, they are always fighting but bettas are territorial fishes and after establishing their owmn places, they are getting quite well now.