Lindsay Simon started with just a toe in the water.
Her family kept just one aquarium while she was growing up, Ms. Simon, of Temperance, Mich., recalled of her childhood introduction to the hobby. That was “back when you could still win carnival fish.”
Her investment in it has grown quite a bit since then: Since her son re-kindled her interest in fish-keeping a few years ago with a well-received present for Mother’s Day, she’s collected more than a dozen freshwater tanks that bubble soothingly in three rooms of her home. Her guppies, bettas, plecos, and cory cats swim in tanks that range from 3.5 to 125 gallons.
“I got kind of hooked,” she said.
Number of U.S. households that own a pet:
■ Any pet: 84.9 million.
■ Dog: 63.4 million.
■ Cat: 42.7 million.
■ Freshwater fish: 11.5 million.
■ Birds: 5.7 million.
■ Small animals: 5.4 million.
■ Reptile: 4.5 million.
■ Saltwater fish: 1.6 million.
■ Horse: 1.6 million.
Source: American Pet Products Association 2019-2020 National Pet Owners Survey
Ms. Simon is in good company: Fish rank among the most popular pets in the United States, according to the American Pet Products Association. By the numbers, they dominate both cats and dogs: The APPA’s 2017-2018 National Pet Owners Survey puts the number of freshwater and saltwater fish at 158.1 million, compared to 94.2 million cats and 89.7 million dogs.
In terms of the numbers of households that keep them, they rank just behind their furry counterparts, according to an even more recent edition of the same survey: 63.4 million U.S. households own dogs, 42.7 million own cats and 13.1 million own freshwater and saltwater fish.
It’s a hobby that accommodates a wide range of investments: A simple freshwater tank might run a prospective owner as little as $50 and calls for relatively little maintenance, while a high-end saltwater setup might ring up at thousands of dollars — and that’s before an owner starts special-ordering the fish and other aquatic life that will live in it.
“The hobby is so broad,” Andrew Whitson, of Aquarium Masterminds in Toledo, said. “There are so many different aspects to it. You can do everything from a betta fish on up to a $20,000 reef tank. It really boils down to how deep into it you want to go.”
At Pet Finatics, a locally owned pet shop in Oregon, David Grosjean said it can be an addicting hobby. He’s himself has been in it for three decades. At Pet Finatic, he said he sees customers who grew up around aquariums, those who are just getting their feet wet as adults and others who are excitedly embarking on a time-tested exercise in childhood responsibility.
They tend to start with a relatively small aquarium, he said.
“Then the addiction just grows,” he said. “The aquariums become bigger and more numerous. There’s definitely a difference between someone who wants a small tabletop aquarium and someone who becomes more involved in the hobby.”
Those who are well versed in the world of fish and aquariums talk more of a hobby than they do of individual pets. And, obviously, the appeal of a tetra or a cichlid is different than that of a cat or a dog. An angelfish doesn’t play fetch.
To some prospective pet owners, a fish is attractive because it’s quiet and contained, Mr. Grosjean said. But far more often, he and others describe a different appeal: To watch fish do their fishy thing in a home aquarium can be really calming.
“That would be one of the No. 1 reasons,” Mr. Grosjean said. “It’s a calming hobby, it’s a therapeutic hobby.”
Ms. Simon thinks of her aquariums the same way. Her 7-year-old likes to sit in front of the tanks and watch the fish, she said, sometimes giving her a play-by-play of what they’re doing.
“It’s very calming, it’s very relaxing,” she said. “Even when people come to my house, if they sleep in a room with a fish tank, they’ll say, ‘I have never slept better.’ ”
Others are drawn to the challenge: Kim Walker breeds discus in her home in Erie, Mich. Discus are a colorful freshwater species of cichlid that’s native to South America. She said she started with guppies, then moved to angelfish. Discus are comparatively more demanding.
“I just kept moving up, like, OK, what’s going to be challenging?,” she said. “Discus are obviously very pretty fish, so I went all out and went for discus.”
Mr. Whitson likes the challenge as well. He specializes in saltwater aquariums, which often incorporate coral. He likes that there’s always something to learn.
“This hobby is really about continual learning,” he said. “There’s a million different fish and coral out there to learn about. It’s one of these things that keeps evolving. It’s not like you buy a model airplane and that’s what you’ve got.”
A key part of this is understanding how each fish will interact with the other fish and aquatic elements that a hobbyist might introduce into a tank, according to Mr. Whitson, Dan Laurie Clark of Aqua Culture in Point Place, and Susan Saad of Coral Reef in Perrysburg. Some fish get territorial about their space, for example. Some fish and coral don’t coexist well. Some critters keep things running cleanly and efficiently for the rest of the residents.
Ms. Clark points to a tank of crabs and snails as effective cleaners for the saltwater tanks in which her shop specializes. The same goes for a skunk cleaner shrimp, whom the neighborhood children like to compare to Finding Nemo’s Jacques.
Ms. Saad, for her part, said she’s drawn to the “creepy-crawly stuff.”
“My store is stocked with a crazy amount of animals,” she said. “If you want it, I can get it.”
Jay Hemdal is the long-time aquarium curator at the Toledo Zoo and Aquarium. He emphasized that an aquarium requires the same sort of responsible pet-ownership that a dog or cat would. That includes doing one’s research before introducing a new fish to an aquarium, both to make sure it will be a good fit for the home and that it can thrive in optimal conditions.
A venomous fish isn’t recommended for a home aquarist, for example, he said. A flashy lionfish isn’t venomous to the point of deadliness, but it can cause pain, he said, which should be of particular concern to a family with children.
Also not recommended is a fish that’s likely to outgrow its tank, like the pacu that Mr. Hemdal said were once far more prevalent in pet and specialty shops.
“They’re an inch and a half or two inches long, but they can grow to be 3 feet long,” he said. “They just don’t have a place in a home aquarium. In fact, we have to be careful at the Toledo Zoo not to have too many pacu.”
Incidentally, the zoo is often seen as a last-ditch resource for fish that have grown unwieldy. Mr. Hemdal said he can rarely actually take in fish in these cases, but he does try to steer owners toward help. He thinks improved education is at least part of the reason he’s fielded fewer calls soliciting a new home for an overgrown fish over the years.
“When I started about 30 years ago, I would get a dozen calls a month,” he said. “I get less than a call a month now. I think that’s a good improvement.”
The Glass City Aquarium Club counts approximately 45 members, with more than 550 unofficial members who engage with an online community on Facebook, said Ms. Simon, who’s the club president. Those numbers suggests a pretty healthy market of aquarium hobbyists in the area, and shop owners generally described a steady interest, if one that tends to pick up when the economy is doing well.
At Aqua Culture, Ms. Clark said she tries not to get too attached to her for-sale residents. But it’s tough: She knows who has “a lot of personality” (a dog face puffer), who’s “a little ditzy” (a tang) and who’s “a little more on the ornery side” (a triggerfish).
She also gets a kick out of Puffo, as she’s dubbed a favorite spiny box puffer, and Puffo’s tank-mate Emma, a striped eel who likes to hang out in a tube.
“That’s what I love about it,” Ms. Clark said. “Seeing all the personalities.”
First Published May 18, 2019, 1:00 p.m.