Anyone keep fish?

[hope07]

Hi- just wondered if anyone keeps fish? Joel loves fish and therefore would like to get a small tank, but got no idea where to start- would love to do tropical but ATM don't have the room so we'd be doing low maintenance ones!
Any tips re tanks, fish, or starting up?

Thanks

Hope x

[MsMara]

I have a tropical tank. I'd have a look on trade-it & gumtree for tanks, there are always smallish tanks on there for free or really cheap. Low maintenance I'd recommend guppies or tetras, they're really hardy & I sometimes forget to feed them etc but they're brill! Um... for a tropical tank, you need a heater, a thermometer & a filter, which can cost a bit new, but you should be able to find for cheap on trade it with the tanks.

In mine I have Molly, Tetras & Guppies, theyre all easy to look after, hardy & really pretty

[CysterSister90]

I have just started keeping fish. Ok I have a 90 Litre tank and they do say that the bigger you have the easier they are to look after. But with limited space I can see why this is hard. If you did want to go new there are lots of fun kiddies tanks about (these might be more for goldfish) but there are a couple of tanks that come with filter, heater thermometer lights etc between about 35 to 60 litres. Unfortunately with tanks that small you could probably only fit a shoal of neon tetras or some guppies you probably wouldn't be able to have a diverse range of fish due to how they grow and interactions with other species in small areas. The shop will try sell you cycle starter etc I've yet to see my cycle starter work, I'm trying to get my fish tank safe for fish before I actually put the fish in. The one thing you definitely need is dechlorinator and a test kit which you could probably get cheaper on ebay.

Good Luck with your fishy adventures !!!

[Trying]

I used to keep tropical marines (Nemo & friends!) and had a 800 Litre tank in my living room! Was really sad to let them go as we'd had some for about 4/5years, but when D came along so close to the puppy we had to rehome them all and sell off the tank.

Marines are amazing, but the smaller the tank the harder the work as you have to keep up maintainance really regularly to ensure good water quality for for wet friends.

I'd highly recommended shopping around for 2nd hand equipment via Aquarists Classified (website) or even fish forums. The price of good quality equipment rapidly drops when you go 2nd hand. We bought our huge tank 2nd hand about 3/4 yrs ago for £600 and then sold it on for £300. The guy bought it customade for over £2000!!

Also please don't be fooled by the myth that "A fish will only grow as big as the tank!" I tell people that if that were true we'd have fishes bigger than countries in the ocean and whale sized fish in lakes!! So make sure the breed of fish is suitable for the tank size.

My advise have a measure up for the space you have, decide whether you'll be getting a cabinet or not and work out the volume of the tank you'll be after. Then you can look at what fish you can get.

A nice style to get is a Nano tank which hides the filtration in the back of the tank, one with rounded edges for Joel to have really good view all the way round too!

Hope you have some great fishy fun together!!

[Hols969]

We have two tropical and one cold water tank. We have just goldfish in the cold and then a fighting fish in the small tropical and then a larger tropical that has angel fish and others in it.

One thing I would say is keeping fish isnt how it used to be, remember when you could win a goldfish from the fair and it lasted for ever!!

We have had real issues with smaller tanks as the nitrate (I think) levels kept getting too high and we did have some fish die (we think we had faulty tester kits as well) and have found the bigger tanks easier to control. You need to have the tank for 2 weeks with water prior to putting any fish in it.

We have inherited a huge tank and we would like to do a salt water one as well but they are hugely expensive to set up so its on the back burner at the mo.

I think one thing I would recommend is going to a proper fish place rather than a pets at home type as they will really advise what you need and how many fish you can have in a tank (the small ones, you can really only have 1 goldfish, ours has doubled in size in the last 2 months, whereas the original goldfish is still half the size, so we have a gready one I think!!) he also bullied the apple snail which was no longer when we came back from hols so we think he ate it!!

I think it is worth doing but it isnt instant (so dont want joel disappointed that you cant get one NOW!!) Im a bit impatient like that too!