We are planning on getting a couple of fish, advice please.

[lissielou]

a tank sort of like this is this too small. and what type of fish shoould I get. ideally easy to look after, its a part of ds's christmas present, we've had fish before, but I really want to be well informed and look after them well.

any advice gratefully received!

5.5 gallons is on the small side, the 10 gallon version would be much better. Smaller tanks are actually harder to keep because you have to clean more often and if things do go wrong then they go wrong really quickly.

I've had a tank like that before and while the tank itself was fine, the hood wasn't up to much (it'll be OK if you're gentle, depends on the age of your DCs if they can be very gentle too!). If you're on a tight budget then consider getting a second hand one, you'll get something much better quality then.

Make sure you get a decent quality filter, something like the Fluval U2 or Eheim aquaball 60 would be perfect for a 10 gallon tank. You'll also need a heater if you're planning on going tropical.

Along with that, bare minimum kit is a bottle of dechlorinator, a test kit, and a syphon tube, gravel vac (you can make your own) and bucket for water changes.

And don't forget you'll need to do a fishless cycle which can take around 6 weeks so if you want fish for Christmas then you'll need to set it all up at the beginning of November.

HTH a bit :)

We got white cloud mountain minnows as advised here back in March and we still have all eleven of them. I am so pleased that none have died because they were for my DS (8). We cycled the tank first, but that was fun too for the kids because they learned about what we were testing for and we pretended we were scientists until it was ready. We got some real plants too which have grown. The fish look a bit boring in the shop, but now ours display in pairs in the tank and look lovely.

You'll get some good advice here - we had never had fish before, and it's been fun.

Oh, just to say we to our tank off Ebay with pump etc. It's worth a look.

Thank you, we had goldfish before. But one was homicidal and suicidal (killed 4 other fish, jumped out of the tank and eventually died of an infection bought in by another fish)

Crikey Not to worry, 10 gallons is far too small for goldfish anyway.

We have guppies in our small (ish) tank, we did have tetras but i found them harder to keep (most of them died and we re-homed the last one last week), guppies are colourful and fun to watch, dd1 has just set up a tank in her room so she can breed them and we got our first babbies today.

In a tank that size you could keep a Siamese Fighting Fish - by the name you can tell he's not the most sociable of fish! They are fine on their own and really beautiful. They also get to recognise you and will eyeball you as you walk past! :)