Advice Please

We have decided to get a small tank, for our child with special needs. Who love watching the fish. Looking at one 30-40 Litres, something like a Qubie 40 or Biorb flow 30?  But not sure if these are any good.
Would love advice on what you guys think we should get, also needs to be easy to maintain.
Also would like advice on which fish are easy to look after. Thanks

I've got a LoveFish Panorama 40L from Pets at Home.

It's pretty good, although I bought a better filter than the supplied one (I've since discovered that some stores will swop for a different filter)

Bearing in mind that you mentioned special needs, the LoveFish  may be better as it has an enclosed hood with a feeding flap.

I've got very small fish, and think that they are fun and relaxing to watch (that's why I got it) 

BTW, Hello! This forum is great and friendly (I've only been here a little while myself!)

Bearing in mind that you mentioned special needs, the LoveFish  may be better as it has an enclosed hood with a feeding flap.

That's a really good point. The main weakness of the AquaNano 40 is the glass covers and the clips to hold them in place. Easy to drop and/or break.

I would really avoid a very small tank of 30 - 40 litres. They are harder to look after and the range of fish you can keep is extremely limited. A slightly larger tank takes up little more space, there is very little difference in cost and you have a much greater range of fish. Personally, I'm not keen on cube shaped tanks, since a longer but shallower tanks gives the fish a longer run for swimming. I have a Superfish Aqua Expert 70 which is only £79.99 from any branch of Maidenhead aquatics, complete with all equipment, including LED lighting. It's a very good economical first buy, costing less than most smaller tanks. It has a total volume of 70 litres, like all tanks the actual volume is smaller when you allow for gravel etc.

As far as fish are concerned, it's important to remember that almost all fish that can live in these smaller tanks are shoaling fish, they need to be kept in groups of at least 6. The big mistake many beginners make is to have either a menagerie (one of this, one of that, one of the other) or a "Noah's Ark"  (two of this, two of that. two of the other). In either case, the result is conflict among fish, either within the species or between species, leading to unhappy, sick and ultimately dead fish. If you do buy shoaling fish, then you would only be able to have 2 or 3 different species in a smallish tank. I imagine you would like lively and colourful fish. Many species of Tetra would be good, some smaller barbs etc, maybe male guppies. With a tank of 60 litres or so, a small Corydoras such as the Panda cory would fit in and are great little characters. Whatever, do NOT go to a fish shop without knowing what you want, otherwise you may be tempted by something like a Clown loach, a pretty lively little fish that looks great in the shop but will grow to a foot or more long and needs to be kept in a group of 6 or more!!! Check the fish profiles on the Thinkfish web site and use the community creator to make sure your choices are compatible and you are not overstocked.

Molllies need bigger tanks than you have room for I'm afraid. They are quite big fish. Don't forget the ones you see in the shops still have a lot of growing to do. Platies might work though and they are just as colourful.

All livebearers (guppies, platies, mollies, swordtails) prefer hard water, and a high pH. You should be able to find your water hardness somewhere on your water supplier's website.
If your water is hard enough for them, I would strongly advise you to get just males. Livebearer females give birth to fry roughly every month, and the tank would become over populated very quickly. Even all females wouldn't stop this as females can store sperm for up to six months.



Cycling is the process of growing bacteria in the tank to remove the toxic waste from the fish. It takes several weeks to do this as the two species of bacteria are very slow growing.
There are two ways to cycle a tank. In order to grow, there must be some of their food in the water, and for the first species of bacteria this is ammonia. You can either put this ammonia in the tank from a bottle of ammonia solution, the process is called fishless cycling; or you can out fish in the tank and let them make the ammonia - called fish-in cycling.
The downside to fishless is that you can't get fish for a few weeks until enough bacteria of both species have grown. The downside to fish-in cycling is that you need to do a lot of water changes and the fish can get sick and die. You know your son; which would be more upsetting for him waiting for fish or having them get sick.

Here is some reading to help you decide.
Fishless cycling
Cycling with fish


The reason you were asked about knowing anyone else with a tank is that adding some of the media from inside their filter speeds up both methods quite a bit.