goldfish

I had a goldfish from the fair that lived for 2 years - no joke! We had a medium-sized tank for it that we cleaned once a month. We also put a few bits and bobs in the tank to make it more interesting.

Yes, buy another one. Don't use a bowl, get as big a tank as you can manage and feed it once a day with a good pinch of "Aquarian" goldfish food. Don't be tempted to overfeed it as it just muckies the water. Change the water about once a month. Put the fish in a pot with some of the old water and try to bring the new water up to room temperature before you put it back.

They don't need a companion and they don't need a filter. I inherited a fish from my son which he bought as a child. I have lost count of the age of the fish, but it must be around 20 years old. Its name changes according to what the latest child wants to call it. At the moment its Dory .

When I was young we won a goldfish at the fair. We put it in a goldfish bowl on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. It was fed with goldfish food from the pet shop and the water changed when it became cloudy or greenish. I must have been about 12 when we won it. I took it with me when I started my nurse training aged 23. It expired a year later! None of the family ever expected it to live so long.

I would buy her another and not tell her the demise of the one she had won. I have no idea how to look after them but I think that they need a bit more than water eg some plant life to make it more interesting for the fish.