Gold fish died

paranoid user

My gold fish died during the night and I'm not sure why. My daughter got him at a local fair three weeks ago. It was in a plastic box that was 6 x 3 inch, which was just cruel.

I brought a 20 litre tank ( I know too small) as a stop gap until I could get a bigger tank from a friend friend. Every thing was going great for the three weeks, regular water changes and being fed properly.

It was a very active fish but on Friday night he stopped swimming and just started slowly gliding on the current of the filter. Last night he was just sitting on the bottom of the tank, I gently held the fin and it shot and it shot off but settled on the bottom again after a minute.

Any ideas

Sleepy

It's the size of the tank. Goldfish are particularly dirty fish, they excrete huge amounts of ammonia which is poisonous to them. They should be kept in ponds, or failing that, *massive* tanks (circa 300l for a single goldfish).

Unfortunately, the general public are completely unaware of this and the torture device that is a goldfish bowl remains legal in many countries (they're banned in most of Scandinavia). Honestly, anything under a 60 litre tanks is pretty much unsuitable for fishkeeping. If you're a reasonably experienced fish-keeper, you might be able to manage something in the region of 30/40 litres with very specific stocking.

I'd advise binning the 20l tank and, when you get the larger tank (assuming it's around 60l or larger), cycle the tank properly (see the sticky at the top of this forum) and look into stocking some easy to keep tropical fish like Mollies, Guppies, Platy's etc. The good news is that these are all extremely colourful, the kids will love them and they're much, much easier to keep than most cold water species or marines.

paranoid user

I'm fairly gutted to be honest, everything was going great. It was a lovely looking goldfish and I was getting the new tank at the end of the week (80 liters I think).

Don't think I'm ready for a tropical tank, this was the first fish I've ever looked after.

Sleepy

Try not to feel too bad about it, anyone who's gotten into fishkeeping has been in the same place at some stage, I certainly killed my share of goldfish before I knew what I was doing too!

80 litres would be perfect for a starter tropical tank. Honestly, they're far easier to care for than goldfish, the only real differences are that a tropical tank needs a heater (which are pretty cheap, 20 quid would buy one for a tank of that size) and that goldfish need a much higher volume of water per fish. If you wanted to stay with cold water (or more accurately given the room temperature of the average Irish home, a "sub tropical" setup), you could keep a shoal of white cloud mountain minnows, or perhaps some zebra danios quite happily in that tank. (The water would come up to room temperature during the couple of weeks it takes a tank to cycle).

Use the rest of the week to do some reading on treating tap water to be suitable for a fish tank, cycling a tank and to take a look at some options for things like substrate, tank decoration etc. and then you'll have the major advantage of being prepared this time around when you're ready to start stocking with fish in a few weeks time.

Where in the country are you? If you're around Dublin, pop into Seahorse Aquariums or Newlands Cross Garden Centre (ask for Gavin or James) and they'll be able to show you some examples of the type of thing you can stock in your tank. In Galway I'd recommend the Aquarium store in the Atlantaquarium and I've heard good stuff about Seahorse's new Galway store too. I'm sure other posters can guide you in other parts of the country

kylith

Tropical tanks are, tbh, easier than cold water ones simply because just about the cold water fish available are goldfish. Unfortunately the only thing you could keep in a 20L tank are shrimp. It would be cruel to keep any fish in it.

The reason this fish died could have been the tank ye had it in, but is most likely because of the way it had been kept all its life.

paranoid user

We got it in a small bait box like you see in petshops, with insects used to feed snakes and spiders.

Sleepy

:eek:

Poor thing never stood a chance.

paranoid user

Sleepy wrote: »

:eek:

Poor thing never stood a chance.

That's what I thought when I seen it, who knows how long it was in it. That's why I goy the 29 ltr tank and filter and was arranging for a bigger tank.

paranoid user

Sleepy wrote: »

:eek:

Poor thing never stood a chance.

That's what I thought when I seen it, who knows how long it was in it. That's why I got the 20 ltr tank and filter and was arranging for a bigger tank.

kylith

Well done for doing what you could for it.

Berserker

Sorry to hear about the goldfish OP. Just to throw in my tuppence worth, I would advise you to go a bigger on the tank, if possible. If you can, you will open up a load more possible options fish wise. If you can go to 110L-120L then you can start looking at the likes of ruby, rosy or tiger barbs and they look amazing. You will find plenty of second hand tanks online.

Just speaking from experience. I started off with a small tank <100L, got hooked and realised that I had to get a bigger tank to achieve the aquarium that I really wanted. Ended up having to do all hard work of setting up an aquarium again.

paranoid user

true the 20 ltr was only bought to get the poor fella out of the matchbox it came in, it was never a permanent home . I've just gotten a second hand Juwel 60 tank, shame it was too late but i think i was fighting a loosing battle from the start.

I've done a good bit of reading and i like the look of the white cloud or the blood fin tetras and maybe a solitary fish. i happy with the size of the new tank, its not to big but should be enough to get me started.

kylith

If I had a 60L tank I'd pop in a heater and have a betta and a wee school of corys. I was up in PetCo the other day and they have some gorgeous bettas.

Must not get a new tank, must not get a new tank, must not get a new tank.

Sleepy

Multi Tank Syndrome (MTS) is a serious disease alright. Having just gotten over my own and scaled back from 4 tanks to just my community and the reef tanks, my wife caught the bug and picked up a 30l Aquael shrimp tank to aquascape!