Is a cold water tank the same as a tropical tank (apart from the heater?)

[wisecamel]

Hello fish people - I am bidding on ebay for our first fishtank and three auctions finish today. I want to keep a cold water tank as it's cheaper but one is advertised as a tropical tank. It is 60 litres though - will it be OK for cold water fish if I don't put the heater on, or are they a different sort of tank?

Apologies for no doubt very dozy question. We have never had fishes before. Also any good fishkeeping books for 10 year olds?

Forgot to say thank you!

Yes, when fish shops say 'tropical' they mean 'tropical freshwater' so a heater is the main difference. There is more choice in tropical fish which can make stocking your tank a bit of a minefield but if you get it right then there's no reason that tropical is more difficult than coldwater. Coldwater is definitely cheaper though!

60 litres is a great size, I've got one that size myself that is a kind of project to see how cheaply I can do it For a coldwater tank of that size you're pretty much limited to 2 options, but they are both lovely fish IMO. You could either have a small shoal (6-8) of white cloud mountain minnows or a single male paradise fish (don't worry about him getting lonely, paradise fish are anti-social buggers extremely territorial).

You'll need to do a fishless cycle before you get any fish.

There are a lot of books around on fish, but since the hobby is still developing at such a speed they are often out of date. So back up anything you read by checking with an internet fish geek. This is a pretty good book, some of it might be beyond a 10 yo I can't pronounce some of the words in there. Most books won't explain about fishless cycling so I'm hesitant to recommend any others. This series is probably well-suited to a 10 yo but it's about different fish families rather than a general guide. There is some general stuff in the beginning though and loads of great photos.

HTH.

Thanks EauRouge - we are going to go for the minnows. I was on here back in November because DS had asked for a fish for his birthday. I read some advice and we ended up getting seamonkeys which he absolutely loved and had for 3 months. He was so upset when they died (I now know you mustn't change the water in the tank when it looks murky ) and they are buried in the garden!

So, I thought it would be cool to get a tank, get some real plants do the fishless cycling thing and turn it all into a bit of a science lesson with a little shoal of minnows. That's the theory anyway!