A party prize spawns a large, colorful and exotic family for one Sabattus woman.

Denise Morin’s ?home may be getting a little crowded. Besides the ?13 birds, the seven cats and the four chinchillas?, a?ny? visitor will notice ??several tanks and a hundred or so tropical fish swimming inside them that call this Sabattus residence their home. Their home away from home.

The fish come from Africa, South America and Asia. Almost all of them are vibrant, varying in size, shape and coloration. While the peacock cichlids look almost like modern art canvases, layered with patterns of iridescent color, the rhino plecostomus resembles a miniature Chinese junk, completely covered in black suede.

They’re all freshwater fish, but they’re a diverse bunch. Some of the fish cohabitate, Morin says, hence the “community tank” — one of four large tanks she has in use at the moment, along with some smaller ones. Other fish can be aggressive, even territorial. No community tank for them.

“I don’t like to overstock the tanks,” she says.

Her largest fish, about the size of a dinner plate, is a flowerhorn cichlid, a man-made hybrid developed in 1993 and, like all cichlids, “it’s territorial and aggressive” says Morin. Despite that reputation, with a rainbow-like spectrum of color radiating across its body, most people would also call it beautiful.

The temperament of her many fish, along with their individual needs, can make caring for them a time-consuming enterprise.

Each tank has its unique climate, which means monitoring and maintenance. African cichlids, Morin explains, coming from the Lake Malawi region of East Africa, demand a higher pH level and a higher water temperature than, say, the fish in the community tank. Morin also installs different plants, fixtures and a natural bed in each tank, depending on the needs and habits of the species.

The largest tank, a 115-gallon behemoth, is about the size of a bureau. “I have to stand on a chair to clean it,” says Morin.

That’s slightly easier than the two 55-gallon tanks, not to mention all the rest. Cleaning alone takes about fives hours each week, says Morin. She’s chipper about it. “I usually do it on my day off. I love animals.”

A party prize beginning

Morin’s background attests to that. A pet owner many (many, many) times over, she works as an outpatient nurse at Lewiston Veterinary Hospital. And she does pet sitting after work. Seriously.

Morin’s compassion for animals explains how she came to be a fish collector in the first place. It all started in 1994, she reminisces. It was at a summertime party, at a friend’s house, where she “won” the prize of a gourami, a fish native to much of Asia. She was living in an apartment at the time and got a small tank for the fish, but when she moved to a house, she upgraded. A larger tank, space for more fish.

? And, she noticed, space for more tanks. ?

“It’s a slippery slope,” she says.

Morin’s fish collecting really took off after a friend, who was moving from freshwater to saltwater collecting, passed along his freshwater setup. “That’s how I was introduced to African cichlids,” she says.

Over time, like most collectors, she has become more discerning. “The fish I used to get,” she says, “I used to just get at the pet store. When I started to get more specific, I began ordering them from dealers.”

When Morin got “more specific,” it meant doing an enormous amount of research on the species she collects in order to ensure the fish would thrive. Listing off the taxonomic names, she could pass for a biologist. She’s not, she says. “I did it all through trial and error,” and studied a lot about them.

Morin has not only invested time, but plenty of money in the hobby, though not in the way one might expect.

“My most expensive fish is around $16.99,” she says. The cost, according to Morin, is in the tanks, the equipment, the food and the, er, accidents.

“When one of these springs a leak, it makes you rethink doing this,” she says, recalling her most costly accident — she came home to find that roughly 85 gallons had leaked out of her 115-gallon tank. “It ruined the living room floor,” she says. So, yeah, “there’s risk of some serious damage.”

But still, she was lucky when it came to purchasing much of her setup. “I got a lot of my stuff second-hand,” she says. It’s something for tentative fish collectors to keep in mind, she says. “Oftentimes people need to get rid of (equipment) quickly, people need to get out of the hobby.” (Check out the related info boxes for more tips.)

Going ‘bad big’

Overall, collecting “can be expensive,” says Morin. And if you’re not mindful of the fish or the equipment, you might end up on the hook for more than you expected. A collector must always be watching, according to Morin, “for good water conditions,” because “when things go bad with a fish tank, they go bad fast and they go bad big.”

During an ice storm last winter, Morin’s home lost power, an inconvenience for the average Mainer but a death sentence for a Central American electric blue acara. To keep the temperatures up, Morin was heating tank water on the stove, she says. Unfortunately, waking up one morning she discovered that many of the fish had died. It represented a loss in the investments she had made, but it struck a much more personal note with the animal lover. “I lost one of my favorite fish ever,” she says.

While some pet owners, and perhaps many non-pet owners, might have trouble humanizing a fish, it comes naturally to Morin. And that’s much to the benefit of her aquatic pets, who, she says, recognize her when she walks into the room.

“They have personalities,” she says. “People are like, ‘Oh, well, it’s just a fish.’ But they’re really not.”

She used to have a fish of the species Andinoacara rivulatus (“You can just put A. rivulatus,” Morin suggests). It’s a Central American fish that can grow up to a foot in length. It’s also called the green terror because juveniles can become aggressive. But her A. rivulatus was quite the opposite. “He used to eat out of my hand and let me pet him,” she says.

Not to mention, “they are intelligent,” she says. “They’ll rearrange the rocks and plants in their tanks” to suit their tastes.

While Morin’s affection for her collection is obvious, it is her seeming fearlessness that spawned her nickname “monster fish keeper” among her friends, on account of the 2-foot-long jaguar cichlids that swim within the tanks of her spare room.

To Morin, they’re just two more fish friends to respect, support and enjoy — cuddly or not. “I love it. It’s my hobby,” she says.

One fish, two fish, which one for you fish?

?Denise Morin has fish of all shapes, sizes and stripes. They all need specific living conditions in order to survive. The easiest-to-care-for varieties are best for beginners, while other varieties need such exacting conditions and care that only advanced fish owners should consider owning them.

Morin gives her top picks for beginners, intermediate and advanced fish owners.

Beginners

Betta fish?: They’re easy to care for, peaceful, colorful and flashy, plus they only require a small tank. Best kept separated, these fish are good for more responsible children.

Gouramis: These fish do well in medium-size tanks (around 30 gallons), but they’re easy to care for?. Gouramis are larger, peaceful fish.?

Tetras and barbs: Peaceful and communal, these fish do well in medium-size tanks in schooling numbers (groups of 6 or more)

?Intermediate

Firemouth cichlids: These are semi-aggressive, territorial fish that will flash their red throats if they feel threatened. However, they usually do well with other South American cichlid species in a large tank.

Mollys: ?With vibrant, marbled colors, the Molly is a beautiful fish. However, they need brackish water for optimum health, so it’s important to research their ideal climate.

Salvini ?cichlids?: You’ll need at ?minimum ?a 50-gallon tank for this aggressive, tri-color cichlid. They?’ll also ?need numerous rocks? and plants to? hide? in? and will bite other fish to defend their territory.

?Advanced

Discus: With discus fish, it’s important to duplicate their natural habitat, including maintaining perfect water conditions.

German Blue Rams?: These are ?flashy, colorful, beautiful and peaceful fish. But they will need impeccable water quality to survive.

Apistogramma?: ?This? dwarf cichlid ?will also require perfect natural water and climate conditions in order to thrive.

Ready to take the plunge into tropical fish?

Consider these suggestions from fish owner and self-taught expert Denise Morin of Sabattus:

* Do your homework. “I generally did enough research to know that I liked them and wanted to keep them,” says Morin. But many people don’t, and then get in over their head, so to speak.

?* Morin advises learning, at least, these three things about your desired fish: Its full-grown size; whether it’s peaceful or aggressive; the level of care required.

* Always monitor the your fish’s environment (pH levels, water temperature, light levels and any toxicity) and keep an eye on the animal, the tank and the equipment.

?* Morin recommends installing a check valve to make sure the air pump in the tank is working properly and that water from the tank doesn’t get syphoned out if the pump malfunctions.

* Serve high-quality food. Having researched many brands, Morin feeds all her fish New Life Spectrum. But it’s good to do research into the ideal diet of your particular species.

* Be careful when putting different species of fish in the same tank. Keep an eye out for signs of aggression, such as chew marks on fins. Even fish that have previously coexisted can become violent. Morin has a species called salvinis in with her more aggressive African cichlids. “They can coexist,” she says, “at least for the moment.” But she constantly watches. “As soon as I see fins being chewed, they come out of that tank.”