The Common Comet Goldfish as a Pet

Goldfish are delightful, simple, beautiful pets. You can get a goldfish for as little as twelve cents or as much as...well...as much as you like. They come in plain or fancy and everything in between! My experience is with plain goldfish. I have dabbled in koi and googly eyed fan tails, but my favorites and the easiest to keep by far are plain old comets. They come in orange, black, white, and combinations of those three colors, and you can get them from the feeder fish tank at just about any pet store!

Goldfish are cold water fish. They thrive in temperatures between 65 & 72 degrees Fahrenheit. They do fine outdoors all winter in moderate climates. Here in north Texas, mine stay in their pond all year. They also live happily indoors. If your house stays at a steady, comfortable temperature through the winter, your tank won't need a heater. If you do use a heater, be sure not to set it too high. Your goldfish will not like a hot tank. Be sure you have a big enough tank. You need at least 5 gallons per fish, and when they get big, you will need even more! Goldfish in ponds can get to be a couple of feet long. Fortunately, when you are keeping them in an aquarium, they don't grow as fast or as big. But they are still big fish that need plenty of room.

So let's talk about caring for four goldfish. Before you ever buy a fish, you will want to have your tank set up. What will you need? If you plan to have four goldfish, you will want at least a 20 gallon tank; however, I recommend you go ahead and get a 29 gallon. This is a standard size that is pretty inexpensive. You can get a kit that includes pump, filter, hood, light, stand, etcetera, pretty cheaply. My personal advice is to avoid under gravel filters. They are, in my opinion, a big pain in the posterior. If you have an under gravel filter, you will have to remove everything from your tank at least once or twice a year and clean under it. This is a big trauma for the fish and a lot of work for you. In my own tanks, I just use lots of aeration, no filter, and do partial water changes religiously once a week. (More about that later.) If you want to use a filter, I recommend the Whisper filter, but be sure you also have some airstones for good aeration.

You will need gravel, which is both an ornament and a necessity. You will want to have about an inch of gravel spread over the surface of the bottom of the tank. This acts as a biological filter and keeps your water chemistry correct. The pH of your water should be at about 7.2. (You can buy a kit from your local fish store to keep track of this.) Having a good biological filter and not overstocking your tank will help keep it that way. Don't overdo the gravel. Too much gravel takes up space that your fish could be swimming in and makes it hard for you to clean the tank. Get one large bag and see if that is enough to suit you. You can always add more. Note that you can use pea gravel or river rock from a home improvement store at a far lower cost, but one bag is way too much for a 29 gallon tank. You can always just use what you need and save the rest to put in the bottom of potted plants or for some other use. If you do use this type of gravel, be sure to rinse it very, very, very well before using it. It is just full of silt.

A few plants will dress up your tank. Goldfish will gobble up real plants in nothing flat, so just get a couple of nice plastic ones and rinse them a couple of times a month to keep them looking nice. Understand that in ornamentation, less is more. The more cluttered your tank, the less space your fish have to swim, and the more hassle you will have with cleaning. It is very tempting to buy all kinds of cute stuff for your fish, but honestly, they don't care. They need some places to hide and rest, but they need plenty of room to swim even more. Don't bother with things like little castles unless you add bottom feeders to your tank.

To get and keep your water in good condition, you will need a good brand of dechlorinator, some aquarium salt, and a vacuum hose. I have lots of fish and a pond, so I use pond chemicals for all my tanks. You can do this too. Dechlorinator for ponds comes in a much bigger bottle and a very highly concentrated form. You just have to do the math to figure out how much you need to use per gallon to use it in smaller amounts of water. If this makes you nervous, just get a good brand for regular tanks at your local fish store. The clerk can guide you to the best brand. Dechlorinator is absolutely essential. If you put your fish in water that has chlorine and chloramines in it, they will die a painful death within an hour.

You can get aquarium salt at your local fish store. Again, you can use pond salt. Or you can use non-iodized salt like rock salt or pickling salt. I use pickling salt. It dissolves quickly and doesn't leave residue in the bottom of the tank. It is much, much less expensive than aquarium salt. As a word of caution, many aquarists say that these salts are inadequate, and aquarium salt is an absolute necessity. Be that as it may, I have been using pickling salt for over 10 years, and I have remarkably healthy, happy fish. I use a level tablespoon of pickling salt per 5 gallons of water. This will vary depending on your water. Take a sample to your local fish store and have them check the salt and pH levels for you before you put any fish in your tank. They can guide you from there.

A vacuum hose is an incredibly handy gadget for performing your partial water changes. When you buy your vacuum hose, don't skimp. Get one big enough to work efficiently in the size of tank you have (read the package). If your vacuum is too small, your partial water changes will take forever. You will want to do a 25% water change once a week. To do this, you will be siphoning water from the tank through the vacuum hose. The hose has a larger attachment on the end that cleans the gravel. Run it through the gravel gently to stir up and suction away any debris. Don't be too thorough, though. Remember that your gravel is your biological filter. You don't want to kill off the good bacteria that lives there. You just want to remove debris that has gathered in the gravel.

Incidentals you will need include a net, a thermometer, bulbs for your light, and fish food. As mentioned before, you may need a heater if the temperature in your house fluctuates dramatically. If you buy a kit, these items may be included. A deluxe kit will also include a nice sturdy stand, and this is an excellent thing to have. If you feel daunted by all this expense, take a little time to check your local classified ads and online classifieds to see if there is a nice set up you could purchase for less. If you do purchase a second-hand setup, you may want to do a special cleaning process on it. More on that later.

Don't buy any fish at this point! Once you have gotten all your equipment, take it home and set it up. Select a spot that has good, indirect light so that your fish will get adequate UV light, but you will not get an overgrowth of algae in your tank. It is best to use a stand specifically designed for aquariums because they are extremely heavy when filled with water. Be sure that whatever you set your aquarium on, it is sturdy enough to handle the weight of your tank.

If you have purchased a new tank, rinse the tank, plants, gravel, anything that will go inside the tank thoroughly with clean water. Set the tank up where you want it. Add water, dechlorinator, salt, plug everything in and make sure it all works, then just leave it running for a week. When the week is up, do a partial water change, take a sample of the water to your local fish store and have them test it for you. If they find anything wrong, follow their instructions to make corrections and bring back another sample in a few days.

If you have bought a second hand tank that has a healthy fish population in it, do as little as possible to avoid disturbing the gravel , plants, etc. Bring as much of the original tank water home with you as you can. Keep whatever filtration medium is in the filter in it. Do the best you can to set the tank up exactly as it was in its old home. Just replace 25% of the water with your (treated) water so the fish can start getting used to it. Buying a nicely established tank like this can be a real bargain and save you a lot of work.

If you have bought a second hand tank that has been sitting with or without water and has no fish, clean everything very thoroughly with very warm water and baking soda. (Never use any kind of soap or detergent on an aquarium.) If the tank has particularly stubborn algae spots or other stains, you can scrub with a plain plastic scrubby and baking soda, salt, and/or white vinegar. When you have cleaned and scrubbed everything, rinse, rinse, rinse. Then, set the tank up to run (not necessarily in the place you will keep it) for 24 hours with a couple of cups of white vinegar and a half cup of non-iodized salt mixed into the water. Then clean the whole thing again very, very thoroughly. Once you have done all this, set the tank up as described for a new tank, wait a week, take your sample to the fish store for testing, etc. You can see that buying a tank like this is probably not worth the monetary. savings you might have gotten.

Personally, I would avoid this situation.

Once you have your tank set up, and your water tested, you are ready for fish. In this article, I am talking about twelve cent goldfish, but these instructions apply to all fish. When you go to the fish store, select your fish carefully. Look for the ones that are largest and liveliest and don't show any signs of illness or injury. Once your fish are bagged and paid for, go straight home. Don't shop or run errands. Your fish only have a limited amount of oxygen in that bag, and you don't want them to die before you get them home. When you get home, float the bag on the surface of the tank water for 15 minutes. This will insure that the water in the bag is the same temperature as the water in the tank.

Once the 15 minutes is up, release the fish into the tank. Cut the bag open and gently tilt it into the water releasing the fish and the water they brought with them. If you already had other fish in the tank, you might want to avoid releasing that water, but since you are starting with an empty tank, this won't matter.

Understand that, even with all the care you have taken, you may lose fish within the first week or two. Moving from tank to tank is stressful, and an unestablished tank needs time to attain a true balance. Happily, goldfish are very hardy, and you are less likely to lose them than a lot of other types of fish. In fact, many people "season" or prepare their tank for other fish by stocking it with goldfish first to establish a good pH level and a good colony of beneficial bacteria.

Once you have had your fish for a while, you may want to add some others. Remember that you need at least five gallons of water per goldfish or other fish of comparable size. Small coldwater catfish called corydoras often do well with goldfish. Sometimes albino catfish will be alright with them, but these grow fast and are pretty aggressive. If you do get catfish, be sure to provide a hiding place like a castle or an artificial log. They will be much happier. A little feeder fish called a rosy minnow does pretty well with goldfish. They are cute coldwater fish that don't get too big. I don't recommend algae eaters. In my experience goldfish tend to pick on them, plus, they are not coldwater fish and will suffer or die when cold weather comes. A big apple snail makes a nice helper where algae is concerned.

Setting up your goldfish tank is a lot of work, but once you have an established tank in good balance, there is very little work involved. Just feed your fish sparingly once a day and do your partial water changes once a week. Goldfish can live for many years if you take good care of them, so after all this initial hard work, you will have a satisfying, relaxing hobby and delightful pets to enjoy for a long time to come.