AIBU to think fish in my five-year-old’s room could be manageable?

[Fisharefriendsnotfood1]

I'm considering getting my 5yo some fish for in their bedroom (higher up on top of their drawers) as they have been asking for a while.

I'm not under any illusions that it'll be anyone but me who actually cares for said fish. But I just wondered people's experiences?

We do have pets already, some of which that do require regular clean outs and maintenance so I'm not adverse to that sort of thing but ideally I'd like it to be as stress free and as simple as possible to not add anything considerable onto my weekly chores 😅

Am I totally deluded that this could be a simple enough pet for our household? Google tells me to steer clear of the typical gold fish as they produce a lot of waste and to go with something like a small group of minnow instead?

I think 90l is very big to start with, especially if it's not in a kitchen or room close to the water. 90l means you personally will be carrying 2-5 full buckets of water, some full.of fish poop, from the nearest tap to the tank every single week!!

I'd go for 40-60 litres, not super smaller than that as the chemistry goes weird. Start by cycling the tank loads longer than you think you need to, before adding fish, a new tank takes weeks to settle.

you could do the clould minnows, need about 8 of them at least. I might go for platys instead as they go happily in a nice mixed sex group as long as you have about 3 x girls to boys, they can be chosen to have individually quite distinctive different colours and patterns (whereas many fish of the same breed all look the same).

They are pretty tolerant of ranges of temperature though 3 of mine did die in the heat recently and the others got white spot- worth considering if you can put the tank somewhere cooler than a high bookcase upstairs, given that the 35-40 degree summer heat will be the norm next year too.

The noise of the filter could be a
problem for sleep

Sounds fine, just keep in mind who will feed it if you’re away. Dogs can travel. My chickens can survive for several days to a week with enough food and water (and neighbours collect the eggs). The gecko only eats once a week. Fish need a bit more looking after.

Also agree about pump and bubbler noises. I reckon put them in a kitchen or conservatory then that gives another good reason for him to sit nicely eating ans looking at them!

Thank you, that's really useful.

We had cold water fish in kids rooms . Would never do it again. Tank gets so dirty , needs cleaning out every week, not a quick job, overfeeding, illnesses … far too much effort

Our son loved fish - he was maybe a little older than yours when he first had them in his room. We also had three cats! I think our tank is 90l, maybe bigger, which is definitely lower maintenance. We did have to replace one Betta with another very similar one when his first one died unexpectedly (he didn't realise) but other than that it was ok. There were many fish burials in the garden over the years.

I think fish are quite intelligent in their way and certainly hung about waiting for feeding time. We did a lot of research on keeping them and managed well but there certainly are cleaning chores to be done with fish. He's 14 now and we are slowly running the tank down and not replacing them. The ones in there now, mainly tetra, have lived for an absolute age though. Multiple years!

Biggest tank you can. Poor things

Do you mean a normal 10 litre bucket? That seems a high water change % on a weekly basis. I do 10-15% weekly on the 120l so it's still only two buckets tops and that's more to give it a good go through the substrate cleaner.

Just seems like a heap of work to me for minimal reward. Can’t they get sea monkeys (or whatever they are called these days)?

We have an 88L tank community tank (various tropical species). The filter and the air stone make a fair bit of noise. Plus, the lighting (if on a schedule) might cause an issue as well (we have ours on a 24 hour timer) for a bedroom. You also need to make sure the fish don't get overfed so don't leave the food in the same room as the child. Setting up the fish tank takes a lot of work and please, please, don't do it with fish present as they would most likely die.

We clean and do water changes weekly. We check water quality weekly. Sometimes we get other issues which we need to monitor (we realised our tap water is naturally high in nitrates so we had to adjust for that). Fish can be easy to look after once you have done the set-up and worked out a routine. But getting there is not simple.

Depends on maturity and if he'd play in the water. As long as he understands that over feeding can kill and so can even a pencil dipped in the water, it could be ok. Does he have devices? Personally I wouldn't. It's the large tank of water, aspect, not the fish, that I'd worry about. As well as friends who come in.

Thank you.

Definitely lots to have a good look into before committing.

I was given a goldfish and didn’t realise how much time and effort it took to look after it. It lived a long time.

Having a pet fish is fine. Having it in your 5 year old’s bedroom is not.

As 5 year olds go, my DS is very sensible and responsible. He’s still 5, and liable to do something unpredictable that makes sense in his child brain that hurts the fish.

My youngest grandchildren were 5 and 4 when their parents set up a fish tank in the livingroom. They were mesmerised by it in the early weeks and took an interest in them. But tbh the novelty wore off quite quickly. The fish existed in the tank in the corner of the room and it became just a cleaning chore for the parents.

Try sea dragons, i got our kids then and they loved them so much.

Or children

honestly, fish are boring as fuck! I got some for my 30th birthday and I was so excited to have them. But they die constantly. Or they eat each other all the time, even the ones which are meant to be the most placid fish. They don’t do anything so they basically become an ornament, it’s really difficult to keep the water right, the plants die, they smell. I was very disappointed in fish! In the end I rehomed the ones which managed not to eat each other and got rid of my tank.

Because of the level of noise etc I’d put them in a communal area. I think the noise of the filter and all the wires and things would be disruptive for a five-year-old’s bedroom.

One of my children had a cold water fish tank in their bedroom at primary school age . We had cats which were never interested in it, but I guess that’s just luck . Honestly the work that went into cleaning and looking after them ( which I did as we always knew it was too big a job for young children) wasn’t worth the reward of having them. Give me a cat or dog to look after rather than a fish any day . Also as an added side effect one of my children still doesn’t eat fish 20 odd years later .

True, it's probably not 3 buckets every week, more like 1-2.What i meant is that you suck up 1 or 1-2 buckets with the vacuum, then you have to bring the replacement water. So carrying 2 buckets or maybe 4-5 if a bigger water change. In my experience getting all the grot up from the bottom is about a 30% change on a smaller tank, but you still have to do it as less than that doesn't clean out properly. And some little fecker has often got white spot so that needs more cleaning.

I wouldn't in their room at that age.

Fish aren’t easy pets! DH has a 5ft aquarium and while beautiful and lovely to look at I wouldn’t say fish are easy pets.

Ha ! Jaws ….
My brother years and years ago when he was young had a fish tank. And innocently purchased fish , a range of varieties.
Sadly one variety ate another. Dreadful.

A 90l tank will be very heavy to sit up on top of furniture OP, it could make it quite top heavy especially if sitting on a carpet.