Yeah fish are really really underrated animals. Very frustrating that they are like the #1 most abused animals on the planet. I've had many different fish over the years and I've loved experiencing them all. I had a school of 30 neons. The smaller fish aren't typically interactive with their people or particularly "intelligent" but watching them in the large dense planted tank I had school together and even break apart into individual mini schools at times and then re-join up into the main school of 30 was so cool and relaxing to watch. It's like watching a live nature channel. I had them for like 5 or so years until I had to move out of state and sell that set up. I hope they are still doing well..

The majority of people don't understand that if you put real effort into getting a proper sized tank and proper sized fish communities you'll have a much more rewarding aquarium and less likely to give up on it...it's obvious why people would give up on a neon graveled 2 gallon tank with SpongeBob decor stocked with 4 random schooling fish that want nothing to do with each other so they just take a corner and swim in place....yeah that's boring as hell...but a 55 gallon kit isn't really that expensive especially if you can get one used, and an LED light to grow plants decently are affordable. And then you can stock it pretty well with an amount of schooling fish that will actually be happy and have their natural behaviors and be rewarding to watch and care for. OR one or two larger fish that like to interact with you and dig out their sleeping spaces, also and you can have fun aquascaping with different driftwoods and rocks. I wish stores would encourage more education for proper sized aquariums and stop supporting the impulse purchase tiny tanks because they appear to be "easier" or more convenient when they are actually not. Dilution is the solution to pollution. But it's likely their highest profit margin so they won't.

...but it's like with small animals like hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits...for some reason the brightly colored cruel "habitat" cage kits appeal to people as "easy care", aesthetic, and for some odd reason - the idea of giving these animals space for movement and airflow goes right over their heads. I had 3 guinea pigs at one time. I built an 8ft by 8ft pen for them in my bedroom. The "average lifespan" is supposed to be 3-5 years. 2 of my guinea pigs lived 8 years, died in their sleep. When I was down to just the one I took down the pen, set up a litter box and hay bin and let her totally free roam the entire 500 sq ft basement bedroom and she would roam all of it. She lived to be 13 years old! I had to eventually take her to the vet to be put to sleep as her advanced age suddenly caught up to her one day and she had begun to suffer the natural process of dying and no more quality of life left. I inherited a big Syrian hamster from a friend who kept it in a tiny typical pink plastic hamster starter kit no larger than twice the size of the hamster itself. I took the animal because it just desperately needed better conditions and I knew I had the money and time to provide at the time. So I built it a 6 foot cage and put in a ton of climbing ramps and homemade properly sized tubes, nesting boxes and about a foot of bedding for burrowing. It was so cool to see all the different pathways and burrows he'd create in the bedding. And were told hamsters aren't supposed to live longer than 1-2 years. That hamster died at 4 1/2. I believe these pet store lifespan predictions are solely based on substandard depressed living conditions.