Goldfish are a great 1st pet for children, you can get cool tanks for them (our kids have a sponge bob one) and they are pretty easy to look after.

They are readily available in all good pet shops so you shouldn't have any trouble in finding one.

It is usually recommended by the assistants in pet stores that you allow at least 24 hours after your tank is set up before you add goldfish to it. I asked why on one occasion and was told that it allows for the temperature of the water to reach an acceptable level and for amonia levels to change. Although don't take me for granted on this as the reason as the assistant was about as useful as.... well I cant think of anything polite to say.

They are easy to maintain they only need a very small amount of food every day (a little tub of flakes generally lasts months). If you have a bowl rather than a tank with a filter you will need to clean it out quite often.

One disadvantage is don't let your children get too attached to them as they don't live forever - in fact most people will probably tell you they have a couple of goldfish a year.

My daughter was devastated when her goldfish (named klaus) died recently as we had him for 14 months (our longest ever living goldfish).

I would recommend getting an algae eater - we have an algae eating loach - just keeps the tank clean :-)