Have you ever had fish as a "pet"? If so look here please!

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by Allison K

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.

But don't get snailS (plural). Get only ONE snail of a given species. Otherwise, you will wind up with a tank completely full of snails. Snails are hermaphroditic, and they produce lots of eggs.

Anyway, the ram's horn snail we had was fun to watch. Sometimes it would go to the top of the tank, then let go and float down to the bottom, instead of just sliding along the glass. We liked our snail better than our algae-eating fish, because it lived a lot longer, and it didn't bother the goldfish. I had to be careful when cleaning the tank, so that I didn't accidentally crush the snail's shell.

We kept goldfish in a 10-gallon aquarium, and cleaning the aquarium was a dreadful chore, in my opinion. I was glad to get rid of it! The pet store guy did warn us that goldfish are very dirty, compared with other fish. I think a simple bowl, with careful water changes as suggested, is a lot easier; that's what we did when I was a kid.