Goldfish Care Tips

A Free Monthly Resource For Goldfish Enthusiasts
December 2018
Issue #060

In This Issue
Why Goldfish and not Tropicals?

Many enthusiasts despair trying to keep Goldfish after successive failures so either give up keeping any kind of fish, or turn to tropicals.

Why Goldfish?

While scanning Facebook Goldfish groups, (yes I spend too much time on Facebook), I often come across enthusiasts who have cried enough trying to keep Goldfish, and are giving up fish keeping altogether, or moving to tropical fish.

I can understand their frustration, as Goldfish are marketed as hardy, low maintenance inexpensive pets.

In part, this is true for your basic Common or Comet variety.

Fancy Goldfish Varieties are None of the Above

A recent video post of an aquarium with about 8 very high quality Ranchu and a few Ryukin was an example of what I often see.

The owner was in despair as two of the Ranchu were upside-down bobbing on the surface, and one which the owner hadn’t noticed, was also developing a buoyancy problem.

These fish would have been expensive. The aquarium was well maintained with crystal clear water.

So, what had gone wrong? These fish wouldn’t have grown to the size they were with a swim bladder problem. The problem has occurred under the care of the new owner.

Breeders Raise Their Fish Under Optimal Conditions

The only way high quality fancy varieties become high quality is because they have been given the very best care from the time the eggs were laid; pristine water conditions, enough high protein easily digestible foods, and enough room to grow.

What are the 3 most common issues I see on Facebook?

Overcrowding and/or inadequate filtration - (poor water conditions)

Wrong food – (swim bladder problems)

Mixing unsuitable varieties – (a variety of symptoms ranging from undersized fish to swim bladder problems due to starvation)

Any one of these will result in failure when keeping fancy varieties.

In fairness to enthusiasts who do provide the best conditions possible for their fish and still get fish that develop problems as they get older, usually swim bladder issues, this unfortunately is an un-avoidable risk we take when keeping highly developed varieties.

So, why do we keep Goldfish instead of tropicals?

To give a balanced answer, let’s start with some disadvantages of keeping Goldfish.

Disadvantages of Keeping Goldfish

They require much more room that the average tropical fish
Frequent large water changes are mandatory
Feeding needs to consist of foods close to their natural diet

Once these basic requirements are understood, providing them isn’t difficult.

Advantages of Keeping Goldfish

How they Interact with humans
Huge number of varieties to choose from
Just as colorful or bizarre looking as some tropical salt water species
Wide tolerance to different water types
Non-aggressive, they aren’t constantly fighting with each other or other species
Challenging to breed and raise high quality fish

Summary

Keeping fancy Goldfish isn’t as easy as some tropical fish, but they are much easier to keep than some of the more desirable (expensive) tropical fish and salt water reef fish.

For the price, you won’t get the diversity and choices you have with Goldfish when compared with tropicals.

By following the 5 simple care rules, keeping fancy Goldfish varieties successfully is easy. If you have had a failure, you have usually broken one, if not more of the rules.

To review the 5 rules in more detail, click here…

On a more positive note, 2018 is now just about gone, and next year will no doubt bring with it a whole new set of challenges.

Have a happy, prosperous and successful Goldfish keeping 2019.

Comments? Ideas? Feedback? I'd love to hear from you. Just reply to this e-zine and tell me what you think, or what topics you want covered.

Next Month's Topic

Hospital Tank Dangers

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