Getting a Fish?

We had a simple gold fish for years.
A neighbor was moving and they had won a fish at a local fair in a ping pong ball toss and couldn't take it with them.
We just kept him in a 5 gallon tank, used tap water and cleaned it weekly.
We got him a filter, a screen for across the top of the tank (kept him from jumping out), some gravel. a few decorations and every so often we'd get him some aquarium plants.
He seemed very happy, he thrived and eventually over 7 years grew to be huge!
Eventually he was too big for us to keep so we took him to a pet shop and gave him to them.
They put him in with the pond fish and he was the biggest of the bunch.

I've had a number of forays into the "fish world", with some success & some sad outcomes.

Betta fish are beautiful, fun to watch, & fairly easy to maintain. If you get one, do NOT get the tiny Betta bowl. They do breathe from the surface of the water, but they do much better in a larger container - 2+ gallons. It can be a large vase, a bowl, an angular-sided tank... They also appreciate having some gravel on the bottom, & a few large slate pieces or plants to hide in. Plastic plants are fine (real plants can be more difficult to maintain)
http://bettafishcaretaker.com

Goldfish are also fun, & you can get "feeder" fish for very cheap. That way, as you become more experienced at keeping fish, the out of pocket cost to your mistakes is lower :) They are another fish that can be kept in a bowl, but Goldfish tend to be messier than Bettas, & will need more water changes.
http://www.fishnet.org/goldfish.htm

Getting an aquarium can be fun also - it doesn't need to be big or complicated. A 20-gallon freshwater tank is fairly easy to maintain, and once you get it set up & established, you can create a community. Easy fish to maintain in these tanks include guppies, platys and tetras. A lot of people will get a pleco, there are a lot of varieties if you are willing to spend more $$.

Aquariums can be expensive if you get them new from a pet store, but you can often find a set-up for sale on Craigslist. They require some type of filter to clean the water (you will still need to do a weekly/monthly water change) and aeration (aquarium fish are not surface breathers).

Chances are, if you start with one fish & enjoy it, soon you will be looking to do an aquarium. Fish can be addictive, but that's a good thing!! And it can be a nice family activity, believe it or not. My husband & I had a lot of fun researching different fish to see which ones could co-habitate, and what type of environment they thrived in.

Enjoy your son's new pet! T. :)

ETA: Diane B - Bettas can live in a community fish tank, you just need to be careful to make sure they live with other fish that will not pick on them. Because they are a slow-swimming, ornamental fish, more aggressive fish are not compatible, & will attack their finnage. Also, they must be the ONLY male Betta in the tank, but you can also have multiple female Betta fish. :)

A lot of people start with a betta (Siamese fighting fish) because they are not community fish at all, and have to be alone and in a small container without filters and lights and all that. Your child can help pick out a few accessories, such as a few marbles for the bottom of the jar or a plant.

They're colorful but, be aware, they don't really do anything. Don't fill the container too much - they can jump out. And stay on top of your child because overfeeding fouls the water. The water does need to be changed periodically so supervise that. The pet store staff can instruct you.

My advice is to go to a small independent pet shop in your own town where a) the people know what they are doing (vs. a big chain or a WalMart), and b) where the fish are acclimated to the same water as you have in your tap (same mineral content, etc.). Our pet store people are great, do free water testing (not so necessary in a small tank but we did it a lot with our large 30 gallon tank), give advice, etc.

We have had a small tank for about five years. All of our fish have survived this whole time and we barely do anything with the tank, I should be better about cleaning it and such lol. Anyway... The fish we have are a fancy goldfish, a shubunkin, an algae eater (keeps the tank clean) and an orange tetra. We also have the weirdest fiddler crab who climbs out of the tank and skitters across our floor in the night freaking us out. The next day it's back in the tank. Such a weirdo.

We have so far put two bettas in there. Each has lasted less than a day. I think they are more fussy with water quality than goldfish

We had two betta fish last year and both died within a few weeks. Don't know if it was where I bought them, temperature, etc..

My sister always had goldfish, they are easy to maintain and they always lived longer.

My grad school roommate and I had a betta for a little over a year. He was actually in a large glass vase with a plant at the top (roots just dangled in the water). He as a great fish. Would even interact with us. He got some kind of a bacteria or something after my roommate cleaned the vase once. She thinks there might have been a chemical of some kind on the brush she used to clean the bottom of the bowl.

We've had goldfish in a 2 gallon bowl that have lived several years.
Change water, wash gravel off every other week. Easy!

i had a 2 gallon tank with an undergravel filter and a bubble stick. i put a 25 cent goldfish in and had that fish for 4 years before i gave it to bil who had is for several years after that.
my local library has a goldfish as well, in a similar tank.

(the tank i had was a aquarium starter kit from walmart and cost about 15$ it had all that i needed except the fish)

for a single fish bowl and low maintenance fish, you just can't beat a betta. (NB NOT 'beta'!)
and they're gorgeous.
khairete
S.

Have many talks with your son about how you never know with fish. Some die right away and some live. Sometimes you have to go through a few fish before you get one that lives. So, don't get attached right away...wait to see if the fish will live. Tell your son if his fish dies then he can go pick out a new one. When my daughter was 3 we got some new fish for our tank and she became very attached to one...when it dies she was crying for weeks about it! She still does not like it when a fish dies, but she handles it just fine now and likes to come to the pet store with me to pick out new ones. I just tell her that fish that died must have been sick.

We've had goldfish that lived for over 5 years and then, later, a betta fish that lived for over 2 years. The goldfish were more high maintenance. We had them in a large tank and the cleaning process was pretty time consuming.

The betta was kept in a small square tank that took 5 minutes to clean once a week. He was the happiest little fish...he'd blow his bubble nest frequently, would swim around in circles when I came into the room and would eat his pellet off the tip of my nail when I offered it to him. I really loved that little guy and was pretty heartbroken when he died.

My son had bettas and goldfish.... Bettas don't require filters so on one hand that's easier however their tanks still get dirty and need cleaning....which during the process my son lost plenty of bettas due to shock...goldfish were easier with a filtered tank system but my son bought 8 with within months was down to 3.. While he was at school the 3 died.....I knew he was still upset over the ones prior so I rushed to replace them and he never knew...goldfish all look the same!!

We had a goldfish that my daughter won a t a fair for seven years. She lived in a ten-gallon tank.

We have better luck with gold fish. We usually keep them for 3+ years.

My daughter has a 5 gallon tank and we pump the water out and add fresh (clean) water. She feeds them twice a day and they have grown from small 1.5 inch fish to probably 4 inches.