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Q & A - Most popular aquarium fish?

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Question: What is the most popular aquarium fish?

Answer: If you guessed Goldfish you are right.

 They happen to be the most popular out of all the aquarium fish in the world. That is because they can stand almost any condition (of course it is cruel if you don't take care of them like you should), and because the are so easy to find and buy.

Goldfish, dogs, and budgerigars (a kind of parakeet from Australia) have been kept as pets for longer than any other pets. Goldfish have been pets for centuries. Experts think they were first in captivity in China in 960-1279 A.D. Back then the Chinese kept them near temples where they started breeding them.

After the Chinese kept goldfish, the Koreans decided to keep them too. By about 1500 the Japanese started keeping goldfish, and pretty soon they were kept in Europe too. People all over the world wanted goldfish. We finally got goldfish in the United States when Rear Admiral Daniel Ammon brought them here from the Orient. Now the United States and Japan are the biggest breeders of goldfish in the entire planet.

Goldfish are coldwater fish. That means they don't need heated water like most aquarium fish. They can live in water that is almost freezing, but like it best if the water is between 46 and 64 degrees F (that is 8 to 18 in Celsius).

When my mom was little (that was a long time ago) they would keep goldfish in little bowls. These days we know goldfish need lots more space than that. They should be kept in a regular tank with a filter so the water is nice and clean. Please don't buy a goldfish and put it in a small bowl with no filter, or it won't live very long. Most goldfish kept in little bowls live only a year or two. If you put your goldfish in a nice tank and take good care of it, he will live 15 to 25 years. The oldest known goldfish lived to be 41 years old.

There are over 100 varieties of goldfish. Some of the common ones are:
  • Comets, which have a long tail and skinny body. Comets were developed in the United States.
  • Fantails, that are shaped kind of like a fat egg. They have double anal and caudal fins (those are the bottom and tail fins).
  • Veiltails have long flowing fins, and are very popular. Some of them have telescope eyes that stick out on each side of their head.
  • Shubunkins have a big caudal fin (that's the tail fin), and come in many colors. They are very popular for ponds.
  • Black Moors are my mom's favorite. They are all black, have telescope eyes, and veiltails. In Britain they breed them specially for competition.
  • Lionheads have a bumpy growth on their head that kind of looks like a lion's mane. They don't have a dorsal (top) fin, and a double caudal fin. The Oranda is a Lionhead with a veiltail and a dorsal fin.
  • Bubble-eyes are one of the oddest goldfish. They have large sacs below the eye that look like someone blew their bubblegum and stuck it under their eyes. Like Lionheads, they don't have a dorsal fin and can't swim too well.

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