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What's your favorite "personality" fish?


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I have a large community tank & my dwarf cichlids have the most personality by far! They are super inquisitive & will sit with me by the front glass even when I'm not feeding.

The Angels are gorgeous but purely food motivated. They're basically aquatic seagulls.

The Harlequins really sparkle in a shoal but I'm pretty sure they rode the short bus to school.

Corys are super cute & constantly bumble about like Golden Retrievers who've been dropped too many times as a puppy. 

All time fave was a huge Texas Cichlid who would swim into my hand for belly scratches and play tag against the front glass. (I'd tap a spot & he would come bite it, then swim off to bite a different spot that he wanted me to tap)

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Agree. My dwarf cichlids are like smart puppies.  
I now have a second place best personality fish that really shocked me. I did not think I would like these fish at all. I breed for vendors and they asked me to breed 2 Aphysemion types and 2 Epiplatys types of killifish.  Man are they interactive.  
 

Each one comes to take a turn taking worms from my fingers.  As soon as they see me they are there. They lose points for not raising their own young. But the mating dance shows the males put on are mesmerizing!  

17 minutes ago, Beach Cruiser said:

The Angels are gorgeous but purely food motivated. They're basically aquatic seagulls.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

17 minutes ago, Beach Cruiser said:

Corys are super cute & constantly bumble about like Golden Retrievers who've been dropped too many times as a puppy. 

OMG so true 

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Panda Garras. They love to rush onto my fingers/hands and try to clean them without hesitation. They even let me pet them while doing so. 
I slightly tap the glass and they come running out of hiding or wherever they are located. 
My Angelfish and Bolivian Rams are pretty good at sensing me from a distance and immediately turn in my direction and start zipping back and forth.

Apistogrammas are pretty fearless and like to be near me at all times when I’m messing with their aquarium.

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Just now, TwoFace99 said:

Panda Garras. They love to rush onto my fingers/hands and try to clean them without hesitation. They even let me pet them while doing so. 
I slightly tap the glass and they come running out of hiding or wherever they are located. 
My Angelfish and Bolivian Rams are pretty good at sensing me from a distance and immediately turn in my direction and start zipping back and forth.

Apistogrammas are pretty fearless and like to be near me at all times when I’m messing with their aquarium.

I've been meaning to try some pandas! 

Agreed on the Apistos. Mine will swim right up when i replant. They do get a bit skittish at dawn/dusk. 

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I also think dwarf cichlids such as rams and apistos are the best answer.

But I will add that cories have a ton of personality in their own way. Its not the same as dwarf cichlids but they have such a derpy puppy vibe about them. My 2 favorites are the panda and pygmy cories.

Another good option is the hillstream loach. They are constantly on the move and just a really cool addition to any tank.

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Definitely dwarf cichlids. I currently keep Bolivian rams, curviceps and Dicrossus Filamentosus. They all act like tiny puppies whenever I’m in front of the tank. They literally follow me as long as they can see me. 
 

I like to think that they can sense when I’m home, because I do see them crowd in the corner of the tank facing my front door when I come back from work. 

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For me right now. It's an electric blue acara. Very attentive and food motivated. Besides him, all the angels. but...

3 hours ago, Beach Cruiser said:

They're basically aquatic seagulls

So true and so hysterical. Kind of like referring to severums as lawn mowers with fins. 🤣 I agree with that 100%, but so entertaining to feed. 

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10 hours ago, Beach Cruiser said:

The Angels are gorgeous but purely food motivated. They're basically aquatic seagulls.

I think that is why my second angel died, possibly why the first died as well. I had an auto feeder and thought it was set good and then I thought the angel had dropsy. After it died I looked to see if I was right about it having drowsy and I found it was just eating way too much. I suspect my most recent died because of my cycle crash, but when it was alive it would follow my corys when they spawned to eat their eggs.

 

Bob, my red wolf fish, has an interesting personality. When he was about 3 1/2 to 4 inches long I kept him with some 1 1/2 to 2 inch fathead minnows. I expected him to eat them when he got bigger but to my surprise he ate all of them before he was much larger though when I found he ate one I would fast him. He also used to fight his reflection in the glass. Now he is lazy and spends most of his time in his driftwood hideout. Sometimes he patrols the midwater column at night and some mornings I find him on the surface. Once he was resting on a mat of floating mayaca fluviatillis. He is a bit of a picky eater. He loves to eat crustaceans, super worms, mealworms, and most floating insects but he doesn’t like medium to large earthworms. He eats pellets but he eats them on his own time, much to the joy of my longear sunfish. He has an interesting hunting behavior where he will see a ghost shrimp or crayfish and he will swim up to it. Then he raise his tail up and observe his prey. Then after he observes it he tries to eat it. Also despite being 8 or so inches he is very skittish. Once I tried to add tiger barbs and shortly after he freaked out and tried to jump out of the tank. This is kind of strange since he used to be quit aggressive to other fish at night. Now as long as I feed him well enough he leaves his tank mates alone.

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14 hours ago, Guppysnail said:

Each one comes to take a turn taking worms from my fingers.

One time my Fundulopanchax Gardneri pulled up one of my dwarf sag because I fed white worms right next to an exposed runner. He thought the runner was a worm so he bit down and shook

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The bigger South American cichlids are generally pretty big on personality. Oscars are big goofs. I had a Midas cichlid (named Sunny) who delighted in rearranging his tank. Both sides of the tank had openings in the cover and if you walked by without paying him attention, he'd splash you. He'd watch our cats and if they walked by without looking at him, out would come a splash of water in their direction. You could almost see him laugh as they'd run away. If you looked at him or tapped or rubbed your fingers on the glass as you walked by, he'd be happy and let you pass unmolested. Ignore him at your own peril though. He was a fun guy to watch. I had a bunch of the weighted artificial plants and he'd pick them up and move them here or there then swim around them for a bit looking at them in their new place. Sometimes he'd decide he liked them there and leave them, other times he'd move them again and again until he was happy. A very smart and fun fish.

 

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