📊 Original data reference
Freshwater fishkeeping, by the numbers
We analysed 22,898 real records — Reddit posts, comments and search autocomplete — from 9 freshwater communities to find what keepers actuallyask and worry about. The short version: it's almost all about the water. Here's the data, and what it means.
Updated September 2026 · method & limitations below
22,898records analysed
9freshwater communities
15care topics ranked
1,522mentions of the #1 topic (tank size / "bowl?")
5,181mentions across the top 4 topics — all about the water, not the fish
15/15top topics with a Finfern guide or tool
What the data says
- It's almost never the fish — it's the water. The four most-discussed topics — tank size, plants & lighting, filtration, and the nitrogen cycle — are all about the environment, not the animal, and together drew 5,181 mentions. Our whole "get the water right" approach is what the demand asks for.
- "Tank size / upgrade / is a bowl okay?" is the single biggest concern (1,522 mentions) — which is exactly why the betta-bowl and goldfish-bowl myths do so much damage, and why we fact-check them head-on.
- Cycling is huge yet invisible to newcomers. Ammonia / nitrite / nitrate / cycling drew 988 mentions — the step almost no beginner is told about, and the one behind most first-fish deaths.
- The anxiety is real. "Sick / dying / disease" (627) and "is this normal?" behaviour (473) rank high — and both usually trace back to the water topics above.
- We answer all of it. Every one of the top 15 topics maps to a fact-checked Finfern guide or free tool — coverage driven by real demand, not guesswork.
The 15 most-discussed topics
Mentions across all mined freshwater text. Each links to the Finfern guide or tool that answers it.
The corpus, by community
Where the 22,898 records came from — 4,445 posts, 13,192 comments and 5,261 search-autocomplete phrases.
| Community | Posts | Comments | Autocomplete | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| r/betta | 0 | 2,808 | 1,276 | 4,084 |
| r/bettafish | 649 | 1,466 | 728 | 2,843 |
| r/guppy | 634 | 1,494 | 546 | 2,674 |
| r/angelfish | 633 | 1,465 | 542 | 2,640 |
| r/goldfish | 561 | 1,233 | 641 | 2,435 |
| r/Aquascape | 521 | 1,434 | 315 | 2,270 |
| r/shrimptank | 619 | 1,164 | 461 | 2,244 |
| r/PlantedTank | 521 | 1,403 | 216 | 2,140 |
| r/cichlid | 307 | 725 | 536 | 1,568 |
| All communities | 4,445 | 13,192 | 5,261 | 22,898 |
Method & limitations
- Source: real posts, comments and search-autocomplete phrases mined from 9 freshwater communities (bettas, goldfish, guppies, angelfish, cichlids, cherry shrimp, aquascaping and planted tanks).
- Sample size: 22,898 records (4,445 posts, 13,192 comments, 5,261 autocomplete phrases).
- Window: compiled September 2026 from our standing mined corpus. Exact per-record dates aren't tracked at this aggregate level, so we don't claim a precise date range.
- Method: topic-keyword frequency counts — we grouped the text by care topic and counted mentions. This is a simple keyword grouping, not sentiment analysis or machine clustering, and we won't dress it up as more than that.
- Limitations: a mention isn't a unique person, and one comment can mention several topics, so treat the ranking as the robust signal rather than any single number. The corpus also carries some cross-post and meme noise, which is why we lead with the aggregate topic ranking, not individual quotes. It's a demand signal — what to write about — never a source of care facts (those come from our cited authorities).
Cite this
Free to cite or link, with attribution:
Finfern (2026). What Freshwater Fishkeepers Actually Ask: an analysis of 22,898 freshwater-hobby records. https://finfern.com/fishkeeping-by-the-numbers/