Goldfish and how to care for them

This guide is about how to care for that most popular of cheap pets, the common goldfish.Since its first domestication as an ornamental pet in China centuries ago, the goldfish has been considered a happy addition to the home and now is frequently a 'starter pet' given to young children, due to the perceived shortness of its life and the ease of providing for it.Unfortunately, both of these views are 100% wrong. You think goldfish last a few years? They don't; they should last decades and a well-cared-for goldfish should live to twice the age of the average cat or dog. You think they can live in a tiny bowl? They can't - a single common goldfish requires an absolute minimum of 5 gallons when it is bought from a store, rising to 10 within months and far beyond. Goldfish require careful cleaning, careful attention, careful medication when things go wrong (yes, you can medicate them) and careful feeding. Make no mistake, goldfish require effort and expense.That's the bad news; the good news is that they make fantastic pets and are well worth the effort for anyone who bothers to keep them as they should be kept.So now, the basics:1) Tank. Goldfish cannot live in a bowl. They will survive a couple of years at best, becoming skittish and stressed due to the huge distorted reflections around them. This increases their susceptability to disease and they will die rapidly (in the context of their potential decades of life). There is also a smaller surface area of the water, so gas exchange is limited, meaning lower oxygen levels and higher levels of waste gases in the bowl. Finally, bowls tend to be small and goldfish produce a great deal of waste (both faecal and in the form of ammonia excreted from the gills); this builds up rapidly and the risk of ammonia or nitrite poisoning (or diseases such as columnaris, cottonmouth and finrot) is high. I cannot stress this enough: do not buy a goldfish bowl; it is tantamount to slinging your poor fish into a torture chamber until it dies. Similarly, do not touch anything under eight or so gallons with a ten-foot-bargepole. There is only one fish that can survive healthily in a five-gallon tank; this is a Siamese Fighting Fish (also known as betta splendens) and five gallons is pushing it even for this specimen. Small fishes like minnows, tetras and danios could potentially survive as a single fish in such a tank, but would be miserable alone, as well as the potential problems of having a group of less than six such fish - they turn on each other rapidly. Hence, avoid the rubbish that is rife on eBay - wall-mounted aquariums, funny-shaped aquariums...the easy rule is, if it's less than eight or so gallons, it'll kill your fish. Goldfish do not grow to suit their environment; in a too-small tank they do not grow larger externally but their internal organs continue to grow until they become compressed and kill the fish. This is called 'stunting'.If you want your goldfish to do well from the start, buy a ten-gallon tank (or, of course, bigger). This is for a single fish; for two 'juveniles' (as they are bought from the shop, between 6 months and 1 year old) you would need around 12-15 gallons as your starting point. If you have already bought a goldfish bowl, it's not too late; move your goldfishes to a new tank ASAP and the damage will be averted.2) Cycling. Here's another thing that no one told you; you can't put your goldfish directly into a new tank -the new tank needs a whole month to 'cycle' - i.e. to build up sufficient levels of bacteria that can break down some of the wastes produced by the goldfish(es). I won't go into intricate detail here; suffice it to say that no pet shop will ever tell you to buy the tank now and come back for fish later (as no one would bother) and so countless goldfishes have died due to simple ignorance. You cannot neglect cycling or your fish will become poisoned and die; simple as that. Information abounds online regarding this process and there are many good books available on the subject.3) Equipment. The next myth; you can't just bung a goldfish into your (hopefully) carefully selected and cycled tank. Goldfishes will need a filter; preferably to cater to the chemical and biological aspects of the waste produced by your goldfish. Always over-filter; for a 20 gallon tank, get a filter that caters for 35, for instance, as the power referred to on the packet is not accurate once filtering materials are added. The filter goes in pre-cycling, and should contain at the very least a sponge, since this will both physically filter out debris and provide the home for the bacteria that are produced by cycling. You should also obtain additions to your filter, which come in various forms, such as zeolite (which helps to remove ammonia) and carbon (removes medications from the water once they're done with). Other additions can be used to buffer the pH of your aquarium if your tap water is incorrect for your goldfish (approximately 7.5 is perfect for your goldfish, although some deviation is okay), but to cover all the possibilities would take too long to note here. Again, find a good online site; many sites operate a specific question and answer service using experienced fishkeepers and I suggest making good use of both this service and the stored backlog of answered questions which will be published on the site.You will also need a simple test kit in order to monitor the state of your aquarium water; you will need at least one that tests for pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels (these are often initally around 20 but last for many months). Some people like to go for the more expensive electronic testers, but personally I avoid these as chemical tests are as simple, as accurate and much cheaper!You may also need an airstone; these have several benefits (one for you and two for the fish) - firstly, they create a larger surface for gas exchange, decreasing waste levels and upping the oxygen levels, both of which are good. They also amuse the goldfish, who tend to swim around and chase the bubbles it creates (it has been suggested that this is referred predatory action, although this is just a theory). Finally, it makes your tank look very attractive by creating a wall of bubbles.A gravel pump may also be useful as it directly cleans the substrate, where waste often builds up. Your actual cleaning cycle will depend on your tank, your fishes and your filtration system, so the best general advice is to make full use of your test kit over the first few weeks to develop an appropriate cleaning cycle for you. It will definitely be at least once weekly and probably more - as a general guide, change immediately if ammonia or nitrite is in the tank, but do not allow nitrate to get above 10mg/l (preferably keep it lower than this).Dechlorinating your aquarium water every time you add new water is essential, as the chlorine and heavy metals in tap water can harm your fishes. Buying a bottle of dechlorinator is cheap (go for a well-known brand) and treating the water is easy but will increase your goldfishes' health substantially.4) Decoration. There are several ways to go with decorating your new aquarium. Again, do this before cycling as the substrate provides another home for 'friendly bacteria' (not the kind you get in yogurt drinks, however...)). The substrate on the floor of the tank is also necessary because fishes become stressed if forced to look at their reflection in the base of the tank all day. Additionally, goldfish like to 'scavenge', or root in the substrate with their snout (if you see your fish picking up stones in its mouth then spitting them out, this is normal behaviour - he/she is searching for food). The best substrate for goldfish, therefore, is uncoloured gravel with rounded edges (not sharp - think of picking up jagged glass in your mouth...not fun). Coloured gravel can leak poisonous chemicals if not properly sealed, and natural coloured gravel is in fact preferable also because goldfish prefer darker colours beneath them. This is in fact an inherited survival trait - ever wonder why all goldfish have pale undersides? It's because a predator beneath them, looking up, would not see the goldfish against the daylight; hence fishes are also darker-coloured on top to be concealed against the substrate. Therefore, your fish will be happier with natural gravel, rounded edges and preferably less than 1cm across - this isn't expensive and several kilos can be had for under 5. Search online again to get the best deals.Objects are fine in your aquarium provided they are safe; buy from a shop to be on the safe side and wash carefully before addition. It is actually good to provide some cover for your fishes as they become less stressed; paradoxically, you will have happier and more active fishes if you give them something to hide beneath. Goldfishes are very aware of their predated-upon status in the natural scheme of things, so you need to invest some time in making them feel safe. Don't put in anything with sharp edges in case the fishes scrape themselves on it. Celestials and Dragon-Eye fishes in particular can end up putting their eye out on anything sharp or pointy. Stay safe and avoid such items.5) Feeding. Goldfishes need plenty of fibre, usually in the form of cooked and skinned peas. Store-bought food is not enough and, if a fish is exclusively fed this, it will make it sick. Providing lettuce and other green vegetables (yet again, go online for various options...goldfish are surprisingly omnivorous) is also beneficial, and goldfishes can even safely eat algae wafers. Store-bought food is high in protein and can really harm your goldfish due to fat build-ups (plus dried foods can expand in the gut and rupture the digestive tract). I recommend a main diet of peas, supplemented by other green vegetables and some store-bought aquarium flakes (which tend to be lower in protein than other store-bought foods). Adding aquarium plants (particularly elodea, anacharis and egeria, although experiment and find out what your fishes prefer) will provide further roughage and also offer more hiding-places for goldfishes, making them feel safer. Aquarium plants should always be quarantined before adding to an aquarium as they may carry parasites - a month in a separate quarantine tank is absolutely necessary (equally so for adding new goldfish to a tank where some already are, to avoid passing on illness).6) Illness. There are many illnesses which can attack your goldfish; fortunately, they can be avoided by good tank maintenance. Finrot is a key problem, characterised by ragged tail and fins. This can affect multiple fishes in a tank and the affected fishes should be quarantined in a separate tank and medicated immediately. Many medications exist for finrot; my advice (since I can't recommend specifically here) would be to select from a brand that produces a wide range of medications, and certainly never use a 'home-made' remedy (some stores sell their own - this also applies to dechlorinator, mentioned above). Similar advice holds for bacterial infections; quarantine and medicate. Parasites can be prevented from reaching your tank by quarantining both new plants and new fishes, and digestive/internal problems can frequently be averted by proper feeding as described above.Of course there is always the bad-luck factor, but if you follow the above advice, your goldfishes will remain 99% disease-free.Although this sounds like a lot of work, the difficult part is getting started and selecting the right equipment, tank and stock. After this, with comparatively little maintenance, your tank will virtually run itself and you can enjoy your new goldfishes for many years knowing they are happy and safe(if you've made it this far, you're probably the right sort of person to do the job they deserve!).I've kept goldfish myself for nearly 20 years and will be happy to answer any questions sent to my eBay account regarding goldfish feeding, care and maintenance, breeds, buying or whatever you like. Enjoy your new fishes!