Goldfish Tank Help!

Well, yesterday was a bad day for our two adopted goldfish. They ended up doing a swirl down the toilet!

I’m baffled I could not keep two goldfish alive for more than 4 days. Bought a new tank on Sat. Followed all the setup directions, rinsed the rocks, put the filter together, put stuff in the water to remove god knows what, bought goldfish food, had a couple ornaments in there.

So what are the typical mistakes I may have made? I need to grab the directions and re-read before we get two more. Actaully, we got both at a county fair, ping pong ball throw. Did we just get bad fish? They seemed fine the first few days.

What troubleshooting ideas should I be looking into? My girls are not to happy this am?

Thanks,

Eric

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Actaully, we got both at a county fair, ping pong ball throw. Did we just get bad fish?

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Very possible you got some bum fish from the fair but with that said every now and then you can get a good one that will last for a few years. Probably 1 in every 50 will last. Been there and done this many times with the girls growing up. The wife and I would cringe every time the girls won one

Even when adding conditioner to your water it helps to wait 4 days before adding fish.

Goldfish are hard to kill. They’ll outgrow a 20 gallon tank quite quickly though. IF they are in a small bowl and they get fed, it won’t last long. No filter, not enough water, etc.

My daughters won their first gold fish last year at the Hudson 4th of July carnival. About 80.00 later, we had the aquarium and all the other supplies. One fish lived, the other died too. Since then, we’ve gone through about 4 fish. They won another one this year. This one didn’t survive the long weekend at the cabin. We started a gold fish cemetary in the back yard. The first one we had a full blown funeral. Now, I just celebrate by having a beer.
Was there any drastic temperature changes in the water when you moved them? Good thing they don’t cost much in a pet store.

Get your tank set up with all the trinkets and then fill with water.. there is a solution to add bacteria to the water.. let it set for 3-5 days before adding the fish to the tank..

keynote here is you have to get a level of bacteria in the tank to ward off all the pee and poop acids from the fish..

good luck…

Skip the Goldfish, far to much work for what they are worth. Refill your tank today and start the filter and air pump. Tell the kids Saturday morning you are getting more fish. Go to a pet shop and get some Neon Tetra’s. Kind of look like “pretty” minnows. Maybe the following week get a couple of Angel fish. (they do better if bought in pairs)

Neons will hardly grow at all but are fast and dart around alot. Angels will grow and seem to hover so the kids get a good look at them.

Set up one time of day for feeding just for the kids. Buy a block of frozen Brine Shrimp and drop a little piece in. As it thaws in the water the fish will attack it like a feeding frenzy. The kids will really enjoy watching that. Don’t over feed the fish with the Brine Shrimp. One very small piece a day. For regular feeding use the flake food sold in small round cans.

Oh I should add. When you bring the fish home in the plastic bag put the whole bag in the tank for a hour BEFORE you release the fish. The water temp between your tank and the bag is much different. Let the bags water warm or cool to the tanks temp so you don’t shock the fish.

Dutchboy is right on, goldfish are one of the dirtiest fish nitrogen (ammonia) wise and can foul a tank quick. You did not mention if you tempered at all, a small temp change between the tank and bag water would not make them happy. Sounds like you used de-chlor, make sure of that. There are many easier kept fish than goldies, we always let the fair ones go in the Mississippi. Joke! That was a Joke!

Most of the time with a newly set up tank it is ammonia and nitrates that kill the fish. THe ammonia works on the gills. Others have written about getting that positive bacteria cycle going. That bacteria actually works on the ammonia and converts it to something less toxic for the fish (memory problem this morning).

If you absolutely have to put fish in immediately then its best to make sure you have as large a volume of water as possible and do regular water changes of 10-20% every couple of days, adding conditioner to avoid all the goodies that can be added to the water like flouride and chlorine.

If you have the fish somewhere with lots of light sometimes throwing in some live plants helps but goldfish love to eat plants which means more waste in the water. If you can get them past the first couple months and establish the bacteria cycle to deal with the waste from the fish then you are usually in good shape.

Remember when you rinse that gravel and clean the bowl you are killing all that bacteria which converts the waste to something the fish can handle easier. So save a few cups of that gravel with the bacteria in it when ever you clean the tank. It will help restart that bacteria cycle quicker.

If you are actually running a fiter then this gets easier because you probably aren’t going to tear the tank down and clean it as much. Remember you want to keep that bacteria cycle going. So don’t clean the filter and rinse out all the gravel.

If you are using city water, it will have clorine in it. If that is the case, you need to let the water sit long enough for the clorine to leech out of the water. Since clorine is poison, fish don’t do well in it.

Thought I would mention it since it wasn’t mentioned in any of the other responses.

Thanks to all! My daughter and I read the replies and she now has renewed hope. She plugged the filter back in and we’ll go to a good pet store this weekend and get some additional recommendations on types of fish and conditioning our water.

Thanks again!

There are a number of good easy to understand books on fish keeping, many should be available at the library or a good fish store. If you are in the cities a good option is World of Fish on 66th near cedar in Richfield.

It is an amazing hobby. A good rule of thumb for the number of fish a tank will support is to take the surface area of the tank and keep the total number of inches of fish less that the area.

Cichlids are fun fish. They chase each other around and dig holes and stake out territories. They are pretty hardy too. I’ve got a 38 gallon tank and my cichlids have lasted years. make sure you get cichlids from the same continent or they will kill each other.

Forget about all those exotic fish and setup a tank using “local” fish. I had a tank for many years with crappies,bluegills, bullheads, gar, dogfish,bass and even pike. Just dump em some minnows and they feed themselves. Suprising what you can learn from watching fish “eat” ! And with a tank bigger is better, I would start with either rain water or pond water, the bugs are already in there that you need to get going.