top 10 characins?

[Industrial]

My favorites are:

Hydrolycus sp.
Rainbow Wolf Fish
Glass Headstanders
Odoe Pikes
Boulengerella sp.
Hujeta Gars
and for community tanks: Glass Bloodfins

 

[Kaliedoscope]

MY favourite is
Triportheus angulatus.
They call them "hatchet fish" but they are more closeley related to brycon

Best characin I have ever kept, this coming from I, a much bigger fan of things like cichlids and knifefish... I usually don't think characins seem that "smart"

But this fish Is by far my favourite.
If i had tank that was hugeley long, I would have an enormous school of them.
I'm not sure what it is about them that I like, but I remember mine would bite my finger. They also can eat minnows, even with that small mouth, but I don't think that's very good for them.

To summarize,
Triportheus angulatus is by far my favourite characin.

------------
actually thinking about it, I always thought distochodus were cyprinds, but I was looking up the hatchet fish, and it says they are characins as well.

So now I have a tie.
Distochodus sexfasciatus is my other favourite characin. Even though they get 2 feet +, they have tons of personality. Lusso dosen't compare. I'm not sure why.

But of course you'd need an enormous tank for D.S.

 

[Scatocephalus]

while obviously part of the allure of fish keeping, i really don't see how starting this topic is going to further improve husbantry or be of any use to members. at the end of the day, this is still a discussion board. just something to think about. otherwise, i will leave this thread alone for now

I think that perhaps he is simply looking for some suggestions as to what fish he might be interested in keeping. He's looking for suggestions on interesting and nice looking fish.

I know that if I am setting up a tank for a type of fish I'm not familiar with I'll ask pretty much the same question. I find that those who have dealt with a certain family of fish can make suggestions that I may not be familiar with and that once informed, I really want to try my hand at.

After reading through the list of fish suggested in this thread he can then start asking specific questions about the fish that interest him. Seems to me that this thread is exactly what a discussion board should be about.

That being said, I do despise the threads that pop up in the cichlid forums on a regular basis asking which cichlid is the meanest.

 

[mynheers_a_pint]

while obviously part of the allure of fish keeping, i really don't see how starting this topic is going to further improve husbantry or be of any use to members.

I agree with the above and I don't believe the OP is looking for ideas, looking back on other threads.

However, people get away with it in many of the other sub forums (The non specific Cichlid forums are probably the worst) so I don't think you can really jump up and down about it without cleaning up the other areas. (Not criticizing, just pointing it out...)

 

[Otherone]

The question as is has no answer, it should be refraised to "what are your favorite charicins" or "what are you favorite charciformes" if we want to include more of the large toothed favorites like Vamps, wolves, and ATF's which are obviously some of the most poplular fish kept by those who frequent this form.

Don't get me wrong - some of the largest teeth belong to characidae(characins) - Piranha, Pacu, Brycon, Dorado however some of the smallest shoaling fish also belong to this family including neon tetras, phantom tetras, emperor tetras to name a few brightly colored lil' guys.

There are literally hundreds maybe even thousands of differnt species classed under characidae, would be very difficult to pick a top 10 especially since most ppl have no clue that Vamps,Wolves,ATFs,False Gars, and African pike don't belong to the Characidae Family - they have their own specific families but all share a common Order. Characin is as loosley used as common fish names for example Gar Characins
are not Characidae they are of the family Ctenoluciidae, order Charciformes. From a "husbandry" or animal science point of veiw this whole forum is either labeled incorrect or used more commomly for discussion of Characiformes.