Once you have established your tank after cycling, you can start buying the fish. At first buy only the fish that are easy to keep and feed. They should be attractive and lively. Do not go for big size fishes. Include Barbs, Danios, Guppies, Platys, Swords etc.. Schooling fish should be at least bought in groups of 6. Where possible buy as pairs, one male and one female. Once you learn how to keep these easier varieties of fish then you can buy more difficult one to keep and breed. But this should take time.

   When you go to the shop to buy the fish, take a look at the general condition of the shop. See how the fishes are kept and how healthy they are. The shop should have healthy stock of fish. If you find that a shop is not keeping good quality stock, then better look for another. Even if that shop is selling at half the price, never buy even a single fish from that shop. When you look at the fishes in the shop look for the following: the fishes should be active and swimming well, the fishes should be well rounded and well fed, they should have bright colouration, the fins should be erect, no humps and bumps should be visible, if many fishes are resting at the bottom or gasping at the surface do not buy. Buy only good fishes. Look for visible signs of illness such as white spots, rotten tails etc.. Even if one fish in a tank has these signs do not buy other fish in the tank. Chances are they are also contaminated.

TRANSPORTATION

   Once you have selected your fish the next task is to transport them to your tank. Make sure that the journey is as quick as possible. Ask the pet shop keeper to put the fishes in as large a plastic bag as possible. Fill it up with half of water the rest should be filled with oxygen from a cylinder. Do not accept packing without oxygen, unless your home is very near the shop. If the travel is long and you are in a cold or hot climate, put the platic bag in a thermocol box. This should prevent sudden temperature changes. In tropical regions this may not be a problem compared to cold countries.

INTRODUCING THE FISH

   Once you reach home float the bag in the quarantine tank for a few minutes. Then slowly open the bag and add some water from the tank into the bag. Then slowly invert the bag and let the fishes swim into the tank. All new fishes should be quarantined for atleast 10 days to 15 days before introducing into your main tank. Do not feed the fish immediately after introduction. Leave them alone to get used to the new tank for half a day or one day. Then feed them live food. They should eat hungrily. If any of the fish is not eating my advice is to return the fish to the shop and exchange for another one. You can tell the shop before buying that the fish will be retuned if it does not eat. Some fishes such as angels may not eat for a couple of days. May be you can wait for a couple of days more. But not more than 3 days.

QUARANTINE

   During the quarantine period watch for possible deseases and also watch how the fishes are eating. Often eating will reflect the fish health. If the fishes are hungry and eat well then they are healthy. If they do not eat or cannot eat then that is a sign of problem. During this period feed them with live food and dry food alternatively. Feed in small amounts and feed only twice a day. It is better to keep them a bit hungry than over feed. If they pass the period without showing signs of any illness then they can be introduced into your main tank.

Quarantine quidelines:

  This is really going to depend on what kind of disease you're quarantining for, and where you got the fish. If the dealer is reliable and you've had a good history of getting healthy fish from him in the past, then you're probably not going to have any trouble just putting them in quarantine for 4 or 5 days to see if they develop Ich or perhaps some fungus. If they were wild-caught fish that you pulled from a polluted wild stream, then of course you'd have a lot more to worry about. Also, after awhile, you can pretty well spot fish that are incubating problems of some sort. If their bellies are sunken or bloated, watch out. If they seemed to be lethargic or perhaps spending a lot of time at the surface at the store, they may have a problem. But if they came from a clean tank, all their tankmates looked healthy, everyone in that tank was swimming normally, eating well, and you've never had a problem with that dealer in the past, then a 5 - 7 day incubation period should be plenty. This is kind of a judgement call. To be PERFECTLY safe, you'd have to quarantine them for a year or so, to see if they came down with Fish TB or Consumption or something of that nature. It's probably not worth worrying about. By the way, the water from the store is something to worry about. Remember, Ich Tomites can live in water, so don't dump the bag of water the fish came home in into your tank. When I bring home new fish, I like to put them in a large kitchen bowl, add a drop of Benzalkonium Chloride (antibacterial medication that you can get from pet store under the AAPlus label), and let everything sit for 20 minutes. This pretty well kills of anything you might have brought home with you. Then, I net the fish out and put them in the quarantine aquarium. This eliminates 99% of the chance of transferring a disease right there. Then, watch the fish for 5 days. If it's healthy and robust, you should be fine. Well, I would have hoped that it would go without saying that if you see a "being treated for xxx", that one would just automatically know that there was something wrong. Also, healthy tanks tend not to have dead/dying/diseased/decomposing/half-eaten fish in them. That sort of goes against the definition of a healthy tank. I guess nothing can be taken for granted, so I'll be just a tad more specific: the tanks at fish stores mostly are linked to a common filter. When you inspect the tanks, that means to inspect ALL the tanks... top, bottom, side to side. Look at ALL the fish. Now, it's highly unlikely that you're going to find one tank that's loaded with putrid, decaying fish, while all the other tanks look sparkling and clean. However, since it needs to be said in words, I'll say it in words: don't buy fish from a store that has a common water system where SOME of the tanks have dead/dying/etc. fish in them. Do not buy fish from tanks that have signs on them saying there is disease. Do not buy fish from tanks that have "do not sell" signs on them. Don't buy any fish if the fish are glowing with radioactivity. Don't buy fish with any worms the size of garden hoses hanging off the sides of the gills. You can fill in the rest.