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I'm 13, and I started keeping fish over a year ago. It all started with a goldfish from a fair. After mistreating that poor fish for 5 months, I found FP. The goldie went to a pond, and I got into responsible fishkeeping. I now have 6 tanks, and am planning on getting more.

I think that fishkeeping is a wonderful hobby for kids. I've learned a LOT, not only about fish, but about things such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, and pH. It is so relaxing watching the tanks, and it gives me something to do. There is always SOMETHING to work on in my tanks.

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They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

Joe Fishy That was very well put. I agree completely. Especially about the dead fish part. My son is 5, and we have always believed that you need to tell kids the truth and let them experience things and ask questions. We have found this makes him a much more adaptable person. (As long as we have explained things to him). And obviously, it has all been on a kids level. But they are sponges at that age, and will learn alot from the fish. And as you said, its a good time for a lesson. If two fish are fighting and one gets hurt...explain it and why its not a nice thing, etc.

I enjoyed watching fish while I was young and I hope my kids like it to.

Fishkeeping, from a parents' standpoint, is a terrific opportunity in so many ways. Younger children are interested in the color and movement; as they grow, you can involve them in simple tasks to help care for the fish. Eventually, you can teach them about the fish, and have them be responsible for a tank, and animals, of their own. The aquarium is a small world, and there are lessons that can be learned everyday that apply to our world. Jess123, the death of a fish is a good time for a life lesson. Your child will eventually experience the loss of someone close to her; if she notices, or asks about the fish that has died, it is an opportunity to explain death, and to explore the feelings that result from it. Other behaviors, such as aggression, health, and reproduction, can be discussed while observing what happens in the aquarium. I also find that fishkeeping gives me a chance to interest a child in science and the environment. With older children you can discuss or debate issues such as glofish, wild caught fish vs. captive bred, and other ethical and moral decision making that will guide them as they mature. One other reason to involve kids - it's fun!! Going to the pet store, watching fish lay eggs or give birth, seeing them grow and develop their full beauty, and laughing at the squabbles that they have with each other, can provide entertainment far greater than most sitcoms. As you can see, I'm rather fond of the hobby; I hope my kids are when they grow up, too!

hi i'm newish i've been lurking here off and on for monthes. i am a mom with young children.i think it is good for the kids. it will be a while before mine will be able to "help" much. My daughter does feed the cories for/with me. this teaches her to count and to follow directions. she is learning how not to treat fish. like yesterday when she wanted the fish to use her potty..... disaster averted for now. she is counting fish. she is learning how to tell them apart and what colors. the baby of the family still can't help but he loves to climb up and watch the fish.. i have to watch him close because he likes to try and catch them. LOL we have a betta and the betta and him like to make faces at each other through the glass.
The only hard part as far as kids is when a fish dies. do you hope they don't notice? or do you try and explain to a 3 year old about death?

Ok so I'm one of the old women of the group (I'm not saying my age )

My mom used to breed all sorts of fish and sale them back to the lfs when I was little 2/3 yrs old. The fry tank was in my room (I have a scare by my eye from where I fell out of bed when I was little and hit my head on the tank), and there were tanks throughout the apartment, more tanks than anything else honestly...Then we moved and my dad flushed an angel my mom had raised because he ate some fry ]:| ...that was pretty much the end of fish till I moved from home to college, where I set up the 20 long that I won at project graduation (this is the one that developed a leak and flooded my living room back in feb/march)...

I've learned a lot, but the true interest came from my mom...for now I have a 55 (replacement for the 20) with Goldies; a 29 with guppies; and a 10 in the classroom...

And even still my favorite thing to do everynight before bed is to sit and stare at the fishtanks...relaxing enough to put me to sleep...

Heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

I won't let anyone under the age of 12 go near my tank...

I won't let anyone over the age of 40 (read: my parents) touch my tanks! They wanted me to leave the saltie behind when I moved... NO WAY! It would have been crawling with damsels and clowns "because they're pretty".

I got my first REAL tank (I had bowls and stuff before) when I was 15 from my cousins; it was a 15 gallon tank loaded with cories, tetras, and an angel. The angel was disease ridden, and my cousins had used every medication their lfs would sell them to no avail (though they didn't follow directions, so it wasn't all the lfs' fault).

When I got that tank I had a lot of learning to do! Nobody told me anything about water changes; I assumed top-ups were fine. I went to the lfs every day for ages until that angel was cured... I learned quick! I'm 21 now and work at the local Petsmart. I'm glad I got that "diseased" tank; it gave me a great start, really!

I think that as long as the young 'uns listen to books, internet and (usually) the staff at their lfs, they'll be fine and become responsible aquarists; in my experience it's the PARENTS who insist on crowding the tanks, getting more goldfish, not getting heaters, etcetera...]:|

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns!

Okay, so I'm 30, but still a kid, Right?? :88) Hehe..

I remember when I was little (under 3rd grade) we had a fish aquarium. I would sit by it for hours. Even though that was %*(&%$ years ago... I can still remember most of the fish we had and what the tank looked like...

As I am just starting my own, a lot of those same fish are going into my tank. (Well, at least their distant relatives )

I have a 5 yr old son, and a 1 yr old daughter. My son has already started sitting in front of the tank to watch the fish like I did when I was little. He helps me feed them once in a while.

I hope when my kids are older, they will have some of the same fond memories of our fish aquarium as I did of mine when I was young.

Hope that helps your paper.

Well at 19 I guess I'm not a kid anymore, but I've been around fish about my whole life. Timeline:

age 2: Mom gets new 20 gallon aquarium. I think it was just a bunch of swordtails at the early height of its stocking.

age 5: Mom starts to allow me to feed the fish in the 20 gallon and I'm learning fish names (no scientific yet of course) I recall I spilled the can of fish food a few times and we had to do emergency water changed....

age 9: got my own tank, a 10-gallon starter kit. The first fish I had in it were zebra danios. A+++ beginner's fish. At this point I had been hitting the books and started to learn the names of a lot of fish I hadn't even seen yet! Yes, I was a smart child, with a passion of reference-type books...

age 13: got another 10-gallon tank... just the tank for free

age 14: moved to England, had to get rid of the fish but got new ones there! (by this point I pretty well understand pH, hardness, etc. Heck, at 14 I've had a subscription to Tropical Fish Hobbyist for like a year and a half!)

age 17: same thing, moving back to the US

age 18: went to college - no fish at school (strange rule where you have to take them home over Christmas break)

age 19: job at Petco. Get to work with fishies for money!


And in working at Petco I get to see a lot of people with their kids come in who have their own tanks. It gives me a really good feeling to see some of the kids who have already researched the fish and are keeping them really responsibly (especially parents who encourage them to act responsibly and heed my recommendations on things like not keeping goldfish in bowls.) But then again there are people who come in who don't ask anything and I ask them the size of tank and what's in it, and choose an entirely inappropriate fish for that setup... that just makes me MAD. I think it's a great thing for kids to keep fish, as long as they are taught how to do it responsibly and to listen to advice from those who are more experienced in fishkeeping. Of course, listening to authority figures is a valuable life lesson (as is responsibility) for any kid, and everyone should learn things like that. Scientific stuff like pH and nitrogen cycles are just a little bonus that might help in academia.

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I won't let anyone under the age of 12 go near my tank...

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Don't worry, you're not the first to mistake me for someone older.

This site is full of mature young 'uns. There are many 15-20 year-olds that could easily pass as someone much older.

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They shade the glow of it with their mossy-misty costumes,
They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass, and silver,
So as not to mislead with their own, ordinary faces.

Janna, your 13. I could have sworn you were much older.

Im actually very surprised that some of posters are as young as they are. Its obvious FP has a rather articulate group of kids my age. As a 15 year-old Im used to my peers being just a bit immature, but fishkeeping is a hobby that requires maturity.

Anyway, i started with 2 goldies in a 2 gal hex because the LFS told me it was ok. I was about 10 then. There was my bettas that were well taken care off, due to my internet research. And now I have a 5 gal Eclipse with 2 guppies in it. Sometime after christmas i should have 25 gal *keeps fingers crossed*

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

I'm writing an article about kids and fishkeeping for my magazine project. The problem is, being neither a kid nor a parent myself, I don't have much to go on! So I'd like to hear from the kids/teenagers on this board, and also the parents of kids/teenagers who are interested in fishkeeping. Just give me your personal ideas on why it's good (or not!) for young people to be into fishkeeping, your personal stories of how you or your kids got into it and what you get out of it, anything interesting you want to tell me. I think it'll be an interesting topic for discussion too!

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. - Oscar Wilde

I'm a legend? You are too kind. I only had a ten gallon for the first 6 years. Then moved to a 29, then 2 29s, then 55, then the stupid 55 cracked ]:|, now I keep 2 29gals and 1 10 and betta bowls... I am either gong to get a 20 gal long soon or a 55. Both for different reasons... Not really a size issue or money issue.

unfortunately not i was not too quick on the uptake!
Plus they wwere all river fish, so they werent *worth* anything

OH MY GOODNESS! i used to be one of *those* fishkeepers!!!

I used to fish out ALL of the fish and the cray, drain ALL of the water using the garden hose, refil the tank with the hose, and dump the fish back in....

Goodness knows how the cray survived through all of that... on the plus side at every water change it got a darn good feed i guess.

It actually hit me one night, when the entire living room smelt like a heated swimming pool i used to visit, that perhaps THAT was the reason my fish kept dying...

Geez. I really hate having to admit i was that thick, but there ya go!

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Daniel you are a legend, that is a beautiful post.

Call, you are too funny...took 60 fish to discover dechlor? Surely you exagerate in the interests of humour.

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~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

Okay im 14 right now. I have kept fish since I was a little over 5 years old.

In the beginning, Mother took care, and I overfed.

In a year, Mother took care and I fed just right.

In 2 years, Mother took most care, and I picked out wrong tankmates.

In 3 years, Mother took care and I listened to the Chain Store.

In 4 years, Mother took care and I picked out reasonable tank mates.

In 5 years, I began to take care.

In 6 years, I had complete control.

In 7 years, I discovered fp.

In 8 years, I knew my stuff.

In 9 years, I know more than anybody in my town and probably county...

I have in this span of time kept more fish than i can remember, and bred anything that I could get my hands on. In the past 3-4 years, I have become a very responsible aquarist. I enjoy this hobby and never want to quit...

I really wanted a dog. I wanted something to cuddle and pat.

you can't cuddle and pat a fish terribly effectively.

I had a crayfish when i was about 6, Presto his name was
I loved that cray. We bought 2 goldfish to keep with him, and he died (looking back, ammonia poisoning).

Somewhere in here, my lil brother caught a yabbie at a Fisheries display (LUKE he was a C. destructor) and i learned a lot from Luke. I even learned about moulting, after about 17 phonecalls to all sorts of places, a uni professor finally told me thats what it was

After this, my family bought a 3' tank. We put Luke in it, and filled the top with mosqitofish.

Somewhere in here i went thought about 60 fish before i discovered declorinator.

Tanks shouldnt smell like swimming pools.

We ending up with 4 cray at one stange here

After that, i didnt keep fish for years, (althoughthe family tank was still running well ) then i bought a small tank (all i could afford) and everything kept dying (i was trying to keep 2 goldfish, an algae eater and a crab in 2 gallons)

After that, i went for the 10L geotanks (again, cheap) and tried to keep schooling fish in them... guess what? they died too

In here, i went to keep an axolotl, but i had no idea still. He died thru internal haemorrhage. I dont know if i did it, or if it was a stone. I did have a decent filter on this tank.
It was devastating tho. this really put me off fish/wet critters.

I just kept this one yabbie (CharlieBrown). I loved Charlie. He used to let me pick him up and stroke his shell to clear the slimies off, and i used to handfeed him.
I really was very very sad when he died. He was 8 years old. I didnt kill him.

Actually, i didnt kill any of the cray, i really loved them



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This is where i become 17 and probably stop being a kid
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After that, i got into fighters, and actually read about them... AND stopped wanting a cuddly pet. I actually WANTED fish. I liked watching the behaviour.




For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I'm 14 and I just started fishkeeping in March. I have 5 tanks and love to just sit and watch them all day. I think fishkeeping is good for us younger people because when no one is around and/or you don't have a job to occupy your day, you can watch your fish tank, think of some aquascaping ideas, or even read up on spawning fish. I think it occupies a lot of time, but just enough to keep you from ever getting bored Also, in my case it seems it helps relieve the stress of school Oh, and i got into it by reading a magazine on an airplane. I wanted a fish tank and my mom said if i researched it then she would get me one for my b-day. I researched and got my first 29 which has led to a 55, a 40, a 10, and a 20 gallon.

I'm 16, and I just started up this May. I'm still setting up my first tank to my liking, which is part of the appeal of fishkeeping. It's like an ongoing project, and it's hard to get tired of it. Some people constantly rearrange their living room furniture, and can't get it perfect. Well, others do the same with their tanks. Also, it is an easy way to be a "scientist". You can study whole communities of colorful little animals, and many of them develop personalities. Fishkeeping is a challenge, and a fun one!

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

I'm 16, and I've kept fish since I was 9 I believe..

Basically fish is something kids can focus on. Fish shouldn't be the only thing we focus on though, as theres alot more out there.

Like what ferret said, money put into fish is alot better than money put into drugs. I think the kid's have something they can call their own, and something they are in charge of. It also teachs kids to learn how to save money, as I'm sure they dont get $300 out of no where for a new tank.

It's also something nice to come home to after school or such. Fish is both unique and its something different.

Kid's also get more creative, being able to aquascape the tank and such.