Best Aquarium Fishes For Your Kids

Fish can often make great first pets for children with their beautiful colors and peaceful demeanor they can make a great addition to any child’s bedroom while also teaching the responsibility of caring for another living creature.

There are resources online that can help you with the overall maintenance, like this one from Aquacadabra, but the last thing you want as parents is to choose fish which are really difficult to look after and which will end up dying and upsetting your children. Picking the right fish for your kids is an important part of the process of setting up your tank.

The best kind of aquarium to start with is a freshwater tank as they don’t require as much maintenance as a saltwater version and are really best left to experienced aquarium owners rather than given to children.

There are also other things to think about when it comes to choosing your fish such as different species which don’t get along with each other and some which require different temperatures to each other – it’s important to do your research.

Here are some fish which make ideal children’s pets for first-time aquarists:

Goldfish
Tetra
Betta fish
Danios
Guppies

Goldfish

Goldfish are cheap to buy and easy to look after, making them ideal pets for children to look after. They don’t need very much but they do live in colder temperature water than most other fish so it’s better to keep goldfish together and not try to mix them with other breeds.

They need to be fed several small meals per day and are happy to eat pellets which makes them even easier for children to care for – it’s important not to overfeed them though as this can pollute the water so your children need to be taught how to care for them properly.

Tetra

Tetras are beautiful small fish which come in beautiful bright colors and they need to live in a collection as they are very sociable creatures and thrive when living together. They need a warmer tank than goldfish so can’t be mixed with them.

Tetras delight children thanks to their bright colors and how active they are at swimming around. They are also easy to care for requiring a varied diet including live food, frozen food, and processed foods.

Betta fish

If your child prefers to care for only one fish rather than a full tank then you could try a betta fish as these live solo. If you put a male one in a tank with any other fish it will fight with them so they need to be kept alone.

They like their water to be warm, between 75 and 81 degrees and can be fed a variety of food including shrimp and bloodworms. They can be given pellet food if the pellets are soaked first.

Danios

Danios are active fish which like swimming all the time so they need space – they need a big tank preferably, the more space the better.

They need a warm tank temperature and live socially so you would need to buy at least 10 of them to help them thrive – hence the requirement for space. They can eat flaked fish food or blood worms and are easy to look after.

Guppies

Via Myaquariumclub.com

Guppies are an incredibly popular fish for children to choose – they come in lots of colors and types and are very easy to look after.

The only issue to consider with guppies is that they are amazing breeders so it’s best to stick to one gender of fish otherwise you will end up with hundreds of babies. They need a warmer tank and need to be fed two to three times a day on flakes or frozen fish food.

Fish make ideal first pets for children as they are easy to look after and research has also shown that having a fish tank in a child’s bedroom can be very calming and help to relieve stress and anxiety, bringing emotional health benefits as well as the fun and joy of owning a pet.

When setting up an aquarium for children it’s important to do some research first to make sure the fish which you pick is not only easy to look after, but will also get on well together and live in harmony.

Some fish need to live in schools while others live alone so make sure you pick the right combination of breeds. It’s also important to make sure they can live in the same conditions as some fish need warmer water than others, but with a bit of research before setting up the tank it can all work out beautifully.

It can be nice to get the children involved in setting up the tank and choosing the fish to encourage them with taking responsibility for the new pets. With some guidance and encouragement, they can take great joy in their new fish.