Goldfish owners -- new aquarium owner requests help !!

[esquire]

A few things I learned about goldfish when I had them

- goldfish produce ALOT of waste so this means a few things
- they don't live well with other fish
-each goldfish should have 10gal each to live comfortably in. so you got 2 goldfish you should have a 20gal tank. But hey, I had 2 goldfish in a 10 gal tank and they did ok, however they grow quickly so the bigger the tank, the long it will last.

- another reason to have a larger tank is that they stabalize faster and are easier to maintain.

- green algae= good yellow/brown algae= bad

- about changing the water, change 1/3rd once a week is good, 2 weeks is ok....
---- goldfish like old water, so if you get a big container (first steralize it with vinager and water) fill it with tap water and dechlorine it --- then let it sit until the next week. The goldfish will love it, not to mention that the temp and ph will be better for them.

- Again remember, GREEN algae is good, its growth is an indication that the tank is healthy. The goldfish will eat the stuff and it provides nutrients for them at the same time. You don't really need one of those 'sucker' fish to clean up the tank, as you will find that they don't really do too much. If you keep the tank in the shade and scrape the sides every once and a while that will suffice.

- a good tip for feeding, only feed them twice a day, giving them each an amount of food that equals the size of their eye (its a good estimate). You can also give them enough food that they can eat within 2 minutes and then remove what is left. Try not to allow uneaten food to stay in the tank as this will just cause more bacteria to grow.

- in terms of basic equiptment, you should have an air stone to put O2 into the water as well as some kind of filter (with charcoal and ammonia remover)

I tell ya, goldfish are probably the most needy fish out there. Even though they can withstand harsh conditions, it really is a chore to keep them happy. Anyway, these are a few things I picked up when I had mine (named Orange and Tiberious )

The important thing is to get the tank set up in the right place and to balence it. Once you get the fish happy and the water stable, taking daily care of them is easy. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Thoran]

Originally posted by ladyzekke: My fish enjoyed them too, but I started to get SNAILS. They lay their eggs on live plants and you can't see said eggs when you buy the plants, not incase you know what to look for, they are very transparent, and once you get snails your tank is screwed and you have to use CopperSafe to kill them, then you have to clean the tank extra amounts of times to suck up all the dead snail corpses. OK enough of my novel LOL. I could go on and on about fish and aquariums LOL, I have had 10 tanks at once before, and have had many different species (only freshwater ones though, not saltwater (wanna talk expensive!) [img]smile.gif[/img]

We had a snail infestation in one of our larger tanks (120 gal) a few years back, Bronze Catfish cleaned them up in a matter of months... no chemicals (at least we think it was the bronzeies... since as soon as we added 4 of them all the small snails started disappearing, and the big ones died of old age I imagine). As a bonus during that period we had 2 hatchings of bronzies.

I'd add to Pangur that the most likely cause of the slime on your plants is the algea that's growing... and you'll get that on plastic plants too. One thing that no one mentioned is that you might be overfeeding, which will decay and promote growth of all sorts of stuff. A Pleco will help but in my experience they don't do well in goldfish tanks... I'd recommend cleaning your glass regularly and not worrying about it too much. Goldfish are very easy to keep but also tend to be messy (ours are out in our garden pond for the summer, but during the winter their tank tends to grow algea much faster than the tropical tanks). Keeping the tank out of the light would help but it may also kill your other plants (some of them seem to be pretty picky).

Good luck learning about fish, goldfish are very forgiving and a good choice for a starter tank, you might think about trading your neons for another goldfish though (assuming they are neons)... neons are not particularly hardy, and I doubt they'll live long in a goldfish tank. Goldfish are basically Carp, they're a cold water fish and like different water conditions than tropicals. If you want some small fish get guppies, they seem to be fairly hardy once they get established, we've got a terrarium with a small pond for a turtle and oregon newts... some guppies got into it (probably the kids) and they've survived and procreated in there for years now, even though the turtle chases them mercilessly.

[ 08-12-2003, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

[Cloudbringer]

Pangur, if it's actually goldfish you're keeping they ARE fairly simple to keep once you know their requirements. You've got a lot of good advice so far but I'll add what I know from my goldfish owning days!

They like room temperature to cooler water (heater not needed!) and keep them OUT of direct sunlight (which may be part of your plant problem too!). The way I understand it, cold water is more oxygenated. (?) (I think Ladyz was right about the pH levels too)

Feed only as much as they can suck up in a few minutes- read the fish food package. Overfeeding a goldfish means a very murky, ammonia filled bowl/tank.

Look for an airstone and small (tiny really) pump. Attach a length of tubing to the pump and the other end to the airstone (or decorative item, some people have treasure chests that open, etc). Basically what you'll be doing is forcing air into the water. In addition or you can try this instead, be sure you have a large surface area (rather than tiny bowl) which allows air to get to the water.

Ideally, you don't have to filter but IMO an airation method is important. Change about a third of the water once a week or at least every other week. If you do that, you don't need to worry too much about de-chlorinating (unless your chlorine levels are HIGH), but you do need to let the water sit at room temp for a bit so as not to shock the fish too much. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I used to keep several tanks of fancy goldfish and loved the little guys, but it WAS a lot of work (of course I had filters and 20 gallon tanks- several!) and eventually the moves (was in college and then job hunting) were too much for me and my aquariums. Had lots of leaks and finally gave up.

Good luck!

Oh! One more thing, make sure you have some kind of COVER on those tanks (one that leaves room for air though!). Two reasons...I had a cat who went FISHING a few times... and got water everyplace, upset the fish and nearly went swimming. And, goldfish JUMP! Yep, they do! I had one go right out of her tank to the floor once! The petstore owner explained that golfish do that fairly often but sure shocked me when it happened!

Oh...and those flat glass panels are ok, but be sure they are snug and set up so kitty can't walk on them....My fishing kitty? He walked out on a five gallon aquarium once....glass panels collapsed at the rubber hinge, sunk into the tank WITH the kitty...boy am I glad I was home when he did that! [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

One more thing- in my experience, goldfish do best with other goldfish. I know people who put them in with other kinds (tropical etc) of fish, but most of them have enormous (50 gallon) tanks or end up losing the goldfish to illness or predators. In my own personal experience, it's bad news to put a catfish/suckerfish type in with them as they go for the tails of the goldfish...not a pretty thing.. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 08-12-2003, 09:56 AM: Message edited by: Cloudbringer ]

[Cloudbringer]

LOL...one more thing... Commets are the hardiest goldfish I've found for an indoor aquarium. They have v shaped tails and get long and streamlined sort of like flatter versions of the hardy (mostly outdoor pond) carp types. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Any goldfish with double tails or fancy headresses is a bit less hardy and usually more expensive.

PS: regarding size...the way I understood it is that the fish will grow to the capacity of his environment. I kept a single comet in a 2 gallon bowl for years then she got a five gallon aquarium and grew bigger! Do try to only have two or three small ones in a 10 gallon tank, though. It gives them room to grow without competing with ea/other at first and if all surrvive to be big fat hardy fish, move up to a 20 gallon tank!

[ 08-12-2003, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: Cloudbringer ]

[Grendal]

I had snails in one of my tanks for awhile. As long as they dont get out of control they arent to bad. If your using plastic plants they will eat algae as well. And my angel fish absolutely loved it when I would squish them on the glass (the snails!) The fish would gobble em up like crazy.

[ 08-12-2003, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: Grendal ]

[Pangur Ban]

So much good advice -- thanks everyone ... this goes wayyy beyond the stuff in booklet I was given !!

The plants don't seem to be rotting any more, and the fish seem happy enough.

The tank is made from perspex, complete with a snap lock vented lid, so my beloved puss can't get in, no matter how much she tries. The fish setup is doing what I hoped it would, giving her something to look at while I am doing long hours at work.

Bought Mornay, Sushi and Sashimi some pelleted food the other day. "Slow sinking" said the label. Another fishy falsehood. I doubt if even lead could sink faster than this stuff. Even if I gently drop a few pellets from just a few millimeters above the water, they have plummeted to the bottom of the tank within 3 seconds.

Hey, Cloudy, I noticed that you called your comet a "she". Was that wishful thinking, or is it possible to sextype a goldfish?

Inspiration !! ( *kicks self for not thinking of it sooner* ) I can always buy a small air pump and turn it off when I go out ....

Pang [img]graemlins/nicekitty.gif[/img]

[/)eathKiller]

I had a pet oscar once, he stayed alive for almost a decade, it was scarry though, because in that time he grew about 20 times his original size and I had to keep giving him a bigger tank, not only that but the ammount of algea built up rappidly to the poitn where I had to change his tank once a month because you couldn't see inside of it it was so green [img]tongue.gif[/img] Anyway, other things I've had in tanks include puffer fish, starfish, brittle seastars, seahorses, jellyfish, tarpins, wrasis, angel fish, yellow fin snappes, butterfly fish, and I once had a bizare deep-sea cuban worm which came to the surface. A few months later I saw these two guys who went to Cuba to look at the life forms around it and they found a creature just like the one I had, they declared it a new species and slapped their name on it T_T and I was the one who found one first... oh well... Now I just keep 2 guppy tanks and I do have some gold fish that were handed down to me, but theyre eventually going to be cat food if they keep tryin to escape from their tank [img]tongue.gif[/img]

As for the sea-critters, they were all retrurned eventually, but I'll give you one word of advice... NEVER keep jellyfish together in a tank... They canibalize eachother and then eat themselves, no matter how much food you supply them with. I still have yet to explain why this occurs. Anyway, Salt water tanks rock, just so you know [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Cloudbringer]

LOL, sorry Pangur, it was because the fish was named Guinevere! LOL So I called her a 'she', even if 'she' might have been a he!

Yup...you could use a small airpump and some sort of airstone or decorative item and just turn the pump off when you go out if it worries you, but I used them for years with no problems. [img]smile.gif[/img]