Goldfish Care Guide, Tank Mates And Breeding:
Goldfish are tough species & don’t get sick so easily. Good quality water can save your fish. Feed your fish a variety of foods, & regularly monitor water quality. If you are taking care of your gold fish, then you can save your gold fish from getting ill.Gold fish Disease Symptoms:
- Gasping for breath, quick breathing, or hanging at the surface of water
- Stop eating or losing weight
- Can’t swim properly or swimming upside down
- Laying at the bottom of aquarium
- Not showing fast reaction to disturbances
- Rubs its body against tank glass & objects
- Clamped or folded fins
- Torn or frayed fins
- Fluffy patches, discolored spots, or raised bumps
- Bloated
- Pale gills
- Visible lumps or parasites
- Protruding eyes
- Sores or missing scales
Goldfish Diet:
Variety of foods will enhance your goldfish health. Feed them a combination of specialized goldfish flake & granules as a better staple food. Also offer them live brine shrimp & frozen brine shrimp, daphnia & veggie mix. Make sure your food has higher carbohydrate level. Freeze dried diet must be soaked first before feeding it to goldfish to prevent digestive problems.Offer food to goldfish 2 to 3 times in a day. Do not overfeed them as this can affect digestion & can poison the water. Only provide food that the fish can consume within 2 minutes or only offer food to goldfish as much as the size of the goldfish’s eye.
Offer goldfish small pellets because it is the top food & can keep the water clean as more food can be simply removed. The small size of pellets ensures that all of the goldfish get their share of the food.
Goldfish Aquarium Size & Requirements:
Goldfish is a tough fish & it is recommended for both novice & expert. Make sure you are planning to setup an aquarium that has plenty of water so select an aquarium that is suitable for goldfish even when they grow up. Many species of the fish grow up quickly & quite big in size so they are called messy goldfish & it makes lot of poop. If you are planning to keep goldfish in a small aquarium or bowl then it is not a good idea. Comet goldfish can have a size of 35 cm & they are suitable for ponds instead of aquarium due to their fast swimming. Other fancy goldfish including Oranda, Ranchu, Pearlscale & Black Moor etc., grow 16-25 cm in length & are slow moving goldfish. Due to large future sizes of goldfish, it is better to start with an aquarium size that is at least 110 – 115 liters in volume which is about 3 feet aquarium.Below you can watch how to setup gold fish aquarium, & adding a pump & filter will keep water clean.
Goldfish Tank Substrate & Decor:
Buy any smooth & tough decoration because gold fish mess with nearly everything. It is up to you whether you use substrate in aquarium or not. But gold fish produce lots of poop so it is a good idea to keep the aquarium bare bottom in order to get rid of them using poop filter.
Goldfish Tank Decor
However, if you want to add substrate to aquarium then select any color that you prefer, but based on my recommendation a dark colored substrate is better to help get rid of dark waste build up in aquarium. Make sure size of substrate is from mid to large & do not add sand as substrate because goldfish can eat it. Always choose a gentle decoration with smooth surfaces as it can hurt goldfish when they swim through the structure. I removed every decoration from my aquarium after adding fancy Goldfish to keep them healthy.
Goldfish Aquarium Filter:
It is very important to add a filter to goldfish aquarium. A large volume of water turnover coupled by highly effective filtration is a need. Water flow must be at least double the capacity of aquarium. It is advisable to add 2 types of foams to mechanical filtration. Also fish keepers use 3 types of foams including coarse foam, medium foam & fine foam for efficient filtration. It will ensure that just clean water flows through the biological filtration media. Adding ceramic media can help, if you find an expensive store bought filter so I suggest you to build your own aquarium filter.A fish poop filter can clean the bottom of aquarium. This filter works best in bare bottom goldfish aquariums.
Lighting & Temperature:
Tank lights can offer essential vitamins to fish. Aquarium must have lights & fish can use them to see food & have fun in the aquarium. LED strip lights is a good option in aquarium too because it can alter its color automatically providing fancy look to aquarium.
Goldfish Tank Lighting
Better lights can play a major role in keeping fish healthy. Like other species, goldfish requires light. If goldfish are not healthy & does not show vibrant colors, then one of the reason could be poor tank lighting because goldfish needs light to make essential vitamins. A complete spectrum is a requirement of every aquarium that does not get natural light. Fancy goldfish are delicate & can do well in warmer aquarium water that does not fluctuate enough. But most of goldfish species can do great even without using an aquarium heater.
Goldfish Breeding:
Goldfish are able to lay eggs when they are offered right nutrition. Most of the species breed in closed setting, such as in pond or aquarium. Breeding process starts after a significant change in temperature, often in spring. Female lays eggs & the nature of these eggs are adhesive & it attaches itself to aquatic vegetation, typically dense plants. The hatch time of eggs are 48 to 72 hours.Within 1 week or so, baby goldfish starts to assume its final shape, but you need to wait for up to an hour before the baby goldfish can get a mature goldfish color. In first week of hatching, baby goldfish grows quickly.
Goldfish Mates:
Do not add aggressive mates that will hurt your goldfish. Goldfish are peaceful in nature that will not live safe with aggressive barbs, African cichlids & other large cichlids.Your goldfish has high speed. Common goldfish can swim extremely fast & they like to swallow things. Fancy goldfish can swim slowly & thus bullies can chase & hurt them.
Make sure you do not introduce small & spiny species. Goldfish have the habit of swallowing things in mouth such as food, substrate, plants & smaller species. Do not add any fish small enough to enter goldfish mouth. Consider the max. size of completely grown up goldfish when selecting tank mates. Also do not add smaller fish with spines, such as otocinclus or cory catfish, which could get stuck in goldfish’s gill plate if they swallow it.
Below you can find top 10 goldfish mates that follow above rules & are the best mates for any type of goldfish you are keeping.
- Hillstream Loach
- Brochis multiradiatus
- Dojo Loach
- Bristlenose Pleco
- Rubbernose Pleco
- White Cloud Mountain Minnows
- Ricefish
- Hoplo Catfish
- Variatus Platy
- Longfin Rosy Barbs
