​4 years of suffering.

too small

I keep 9 catfish in a tumbler full of tramps urine.

They love it.

Far too small for anything other then a couple of guppies and cruel to boot, round tanks are not recommended as they stress fish out from the confusion of going round and round.

Make a nice display for plants tho, maybe even add a few water snails to look nice.

too small

I was tempted but I think you may be right it's a tad small

We had one of these maybe 15 years ago, great little tank... Don't ask me how, but the environment was so stable that our Mollys managed to breed! No issues with the heater element either, was fine with tropical fish. We even had silver sharks in it at one point.

I think the rule of thumb is 5l of water per inch of fish.

Any of the orbs do not provide enough surface area for air and WILL kill the fish you put in it. Also the filtration system is very poor. It looks nice to start with but will soon look pretty grim. Talking from experience.

So what's so special about these ?? Isn't it just a bowl of water with a pump ?

I've had mine, with two large gold fish. One died last year, :-(, but otherwise a fine low maintenance unit which looks super sweet with the light on.

they will breed in toilet water if a male and female are together, this is way too small for them, silver sharks or anything like them

For what, Your mansion ? Mrs tells me that everytime i fall out with her.

Wrong button. I didn't mean to like that.

A 30L one of these is too small for goldfish. They survive because they're incredibly hardy fish. But it's not a good environment for them. Doubly so given the amount goldfish poop.

I had the 60L one for a few years. That isn't big enough for goldfish.

This is suitable for 3 or 4 minnows or shrimps. Thats about it.

ive never felt theselook very stable..they always look like they are going to topple as soon as someone touches them!

I've got one of these and went to a fish shop and was advised to populate it with three mollies. So we did "Fatty", "Blacky" and "Goldy". A week later "Fatty" was a lot slimmer and 14 teeny weeny extras were in the tank. I think the extras pooped too much and one by one "Fatty" ,"Blacky" and "Goldy" went to sleep with the fishes and a few of the extras disapeared without trace. One year later (now) we have "Fatty2", "Blacky2", "Goldy2" and "The other one" they seem happy not that I'm a fish expert. I have took them out twice and cleaned the tank other wise it stays quite clean with just a syphon out every month and replacing 1/4 of their water.

Are you saying the tank has to rectangular for fish to survive? Is this your opinion or can you back it up?

​4 years of suffering.

Don't be ridiculous my fish are happier than you by the sound of it! and the deal is good I paid £50 for a second hand one 7 years ago! So is this a deal site or a debate about the RSPF (Royal Society for Protection of Fish)

Far too small for anything other then a couple of guppies and cruel to boot, round tanks are not recommended as they stress fish out from the confusion of going round and round.

Make a nice display for plants tho, maybe even add a few water snails to look nice.

The staff at my local Pets at Home advised against these for goldfish, and said that they should only be used for small fish, due to the shape of the bowl and the small surface area.

How old and what type tho? A proper goldfish will last about 30 years and grow to at least 5 inches long. Comets tend to live about 17 years, moors around 7, poor old bubble eyed ones last about 3.

Any decent alternative suggestions , something that's an attractive feature too as well as a decent tank etc

Lol yeah my dad had mollies once he couldn't get rid of the things fast enough, he was giving them away to anyone who wanted them for free and still had a over stuffed tank, in the end he got rid of em and just kept the tetras and guppies.

Dont think you can have both tbh, also depends what you want in it, but you should have a bog standard shaped one or even a hexagonal one providing its not too deep. The thing about the round ones is the opening at the top isn't big enough to aerate the water, if you do have a bowl the advice is to only fill it halfway to give it more surface area for the air to circulate, so you only use half the bowl really.

Way too small for anything but a guppy/molly quarantine tank. These should be banned.

How fancy, if I had a goldfish live 4 years I'd feel guilty that I didn't look after it properly, not saying 4 years isn't a good age but its entirely dependent on the breed the rule of thumb is the more freaky they look the shorter they live.

Definitely not big enough for goldfish. I just had to upgrade to a 60 litre tank for my ONE goldfish that is now about 7cm long.

Do not buy round fish tank!

No worse than the awful cramped conditions Pets at Home seem to keep all their other creatures in!

Yes the world is flat now didn't you know?

The issue with these globe so called fish tanks is the surface area is tiny by comparison to a rectangular tank for any given volume. It's wicked to keep fish in a tank like this.

Surface area not volume

I agree! my fish look wicked in the biorb 30. I didn't buy it to be a fish lover. It's an ornament and fishes don't remember anything over 2 seconds anyway.

I keep 9 catfish in a tumbler full of tramps urine.

They love it.

I think you might have watched this too many times.



Fish memory myth

People's perceptions of goldfish still amazes me. I thought we'd moved on from people winning them from the fair and keeping them in a bowl, but the biOrb revolution (or devolution as it should be known) has kept the legend of "the tiny goldfish" alive. It seems you have better knowledge than most, but to be honest, 60 litres is still small for a common golfish. It would be acceptable as a temporary holding tank or for juveniles, but they want to be in a 120L+ tank as they grow to mid size, and ideally they need to end up in a pond or large 200L+ tank as they reach 20-30cm in length. Stunted growth is quite common in goldfish kept in small tanks, leading to compaction of internal organs and early death. This reinforces the myth that "golffish will only grow to the size of it's tank" which whilst partially true actually causes the poor fish unecessary suffering.

Shops like [email protected] have definitely improved the information they offer the customer but many shops still lie about fish's needs to make a sale.

Have a look on your local Gumtree ,always plenty tanks for sale there.

In terms of cold-water fish you're looking at a modest shoal of white cloud mountain minnows or zebra danios for an aquarium of this volume. Anything more or bigger and you're inducing suffering and a short life span for the fish.

Absolute nonsense. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10937888/Memory-of-a-goldfish-Actually-fish-can-recall-events-12-days-ago.html

A fish is an animal, not an ornament. Look after it properly or give it to someone who can.

If they grew any bigger I would eat them!

I also have a Toad I found in the garden. I don't have a tank for him so I wrapped him in cling-film to keep him damp. He has dried out a bit now though and I now class him as an ornament.
Sorry jumped in with both feet there. I'm a farmer so have a different caring attitude towards animals than a Towny/tree hugger

I don't know what you're trying to do here, or how sarcastic you're being but throwing shade at people and referring to them as tree huggers just seems unnecessary. It's ironic how a farmer, a person responsible for live-stock, seems ignorant to the well-being of aquatic life.

If we were out of Europe these could be banned - but thanks to Brussels these are allowed because they can store 7 standard bananas and a pineapple.

Pet Planet £59.99 with free delivery.

Would like to compare this with some other options though. Tend to agree with the size/surface area comments.

4 years when a standard goldfish has a lifespan of around 10 years and pretty easily can be up to 30.

For £65, I'd rather buy a decent rectangular tank and the equipment to enjoy the fish for their full natural life span.


Good to see I'm not the only one naming fish badly. One of mine years ago was called Ess H One Tee (adjusted for the kids so try spelling it out). I bet you cant guess what that one looked like.

It's really not big enough, but also they're a real pain to manage. You have to clean, move ornaments and do everything through a tiny hole in the top, and the filter gets clogged a lot. I second gumtree, bigger tanks aren't hard, or more expensive if you're not buying from biorb. £60 on gumtree could get you a 200l plus filter and heater ez

So the oldest lived for 26 years less then he/she should've done.

Hot for the price.

Agreed but it doesn't mean you should support cruelty to animals. In the same way that nearly every pet shop still sells plecos and clown loach knowing they will outgrow the majority of fish tanks.

Edit: If they survive that long..

A goldfishes memory lasts about 6 months actually they have done experiments teaching them to do tricks then left it ever increasing amount of time to see how long they remember it.

If you want something ornamental buy a Buddha statue, perhaps looking at his chubby smiling face for a few weeks will invoke in you some respect for living things.

Or more, amazingly I have seen baby koi sold in petshops alongside the goldfish with no indication that they can grow to the size of a salmon and reach 100 years old or more.

I went for a interview at petsmart many years ago (now the place is [email protected]), during the interview they spoke about rodents and asked if I knew how to sex them, when I answered they said thats good but we sell them before their balls drop, thry sold them at 4 weeks old while they are still tiny and cute and go by the distance between anus and pee hole. Now as I was a gerbil breeder at the time I couldn't help but point out that is a very reckless way to sex an animal as it is no way accurate and if we are talking about gerbils selling them at 4 weeks is cruel becausea 4 week old gerbil is still weaning. Couldn't get out that place quick enough tbh, never bought an animal there since neither even with the name change. Hell I was buying some filter equipment in there years back (it was [email protected] then) when I spotted a kid getting a black moore goldfish bought for them, honest to god the guy with the plastic bag spinned it round and round fast causing the fish to flop about in the bottom of the bag before he sealed it, poor thing, big shops like that just treat them product.

The way a pet shop keeps their animals is not to be compared to how a pet owner should keep them. The pet shop is a temporary home. A dog home may keep their dogs in cages but they wouldn't allow someone to adopt one of their dogs if they intended to keep a dog in that way. It's not a double standard.

Also most decent aquarium shops will have large unseen filtering systems which are not comparable to the household ones people use for their home aquariums.

I had a similar experience at [email protected] I bought some tropical fish (Cories) and for some unknown reason the guy placed the bag into the cold water where they kept the live plants to tie the bag up. I thought the water there must be warm too but when I dipped my finger in it, it wasn't. Needless to say the fish died with 24 hours. When I went back to complain the guy didn't give me a reason why he would place them in cold water at all and simply said the fish can live in low temperatures. Even if this was true (which it isn't) no fish will like sudden temperature changes. Strangely they say only the 'trained' staff are allowed to work in the fish section.