[Allison K]

I've found beta fish to be the heartiest fish I've had. My brother had one (supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) that lived for like 11 months (about twice as long as all of his other fish). The only thing with beta fish is they'll eat anything that's in a bowl with them. If you get non-carnivorous fish, get some snails too. They eat the algea so you won't have to clean it nearly as often. I don't know if fish react adversly to sunlight. We've never tried it before. I would guess that it wouldn't affect them much since water takes relatively long to heat up/cool down compared to air, but it's probably safer not too.

I dunno about cats and fish. I only have dogs (who are much more interested in my brother's bird than his fish (though now that the novelty of the bird has worn off, my yellow lab will let the cockatiel ride on it's back)).