Should LiveAquaria update their list of suitable beginner fish?

[Zionas]

I feel like many species could be added to their their “SW Beginners” section. To further improve the accuracy of the information, I would also suggest that they separate the Beginner category into “Beginner” and “Advanced Beginner”, with the latter category meaning fish that are relatively easy to keep but do best in tanks 6 months or older.


Advanced Beginner:
-Coral Beauty Angelfish

-Half-Black Angelfish

-Cherub Angelfish

-African Flameback (Fireball) Angelfish

-Yellowtail Pygmy Angelfish (Centropyge Flavicauda)

-Maculosus Angelfish (Captive-Bred)

-The smaller Zebrasoma tangs (Yellow, Scopas, Purple)



Beginner: Everything they have so far, with the addition of:

-All the Foxface species except the very large ones

-A couple more Fairy / Flasher Wrasses

-Four-Line Wrasse

-Mystery Wrasse

-Eight-Line Wrasse

-The smaller Halichoeres wrasses

-More damsels and Chromis species

-Marine Betta

-Australian Stripey (Microcanthus strigaster)

-More basslets

-More Hawkfish

-More gobies

-More Blennies


I also feel their difficulty ranking can be updated:

1. Simple

2. Easy

3. Moderate

4. Challenging

5. Difficult

6. Expert Only

 

[pcon]

LA ratings are not a gospel, every fish can present its own unique set of challenges and the difficulty of a given species can vary greatly across a number of individuals. By in large I agree with LA's ratings, however I often feel that they rank fish as easy that would be more appropriate at higher levels. I don't agree with all the fish that you have listed above as being for good for beginning aquarists, predominantly marine bettas and mystery wrasses are not ideal beginner fish, each presenting challenges in conditioning them to captivity. Adding further levels of difficulty rankings would not provide much useful information, as experienced aquarists will often disagree on the difficulty of various species. It is more important to recognize the specific challenges facing a species, than a generic difficulty rating. There are areas where LA could provide more useful granulation of information, like with further explanation on coral safe, motile invert safe, what corals to exercise caution with, which would be more useful to the average hobbyist than further refinement of their difficulty rating. If you feel passionately about this after you gain experience keeping various fish you should construct your own rankings and list of beginner suitable fish.

 

[homer1475]

LA now owned by PETCO, formerly owned by Dr. Foster&Smith.

Not going to happen in my lifetime or yours. It makes them money and they don't have to do squat to the website is F&S set it up years ago. All Petco cares about is turning a profit.

 

[Zionas]

If I lived in the West I would not buy from Petco. Yeah, I forgot LA was acquired by them. Why the heck does money always play the determining role? Sigh.

Making my own list sounds like a good idea. Maybe I could write my own guide someday (it’s gonna be a long time though because I’m still a newbie).

 

[homer1475]

I have no problem buying from PETCO, I actually have a few around me that are quite decent.

One I frequent, their aquatics dept. is run by my old LFS owner(Super great guy and really know his stuff. Took a fragging class from him actually) that went out of business when his business partner decided it was more fun to spend the profits on parties then back into the store.

Not all PETCO's are created equally.

 

[Zionas]

That’s great to hear.