A coworker is going to be moving this summer and she thought Sweet Daughter might like their pet goldfish. Another coworker (who is Snow White reincarnated – she has a stray cat trained to sleep in a crate at night so it won’t bother the baby flying squirrels. She has a stingray she can pet.) donated a 10 gallon tank and filter. What I knew about goldfish could be written on the inside of a matchbook cover with a grease pencil, but I said “Sure! We’ll take Goldie!” After a crash course in fish care, ammonia levels, the evils of overfeeding, and spending an awful lot of money on “extras”, we brought her home. Did I mention this was an outdoor fish that lived in an artificial pond? Year round?
Goldie is about 8” long and clearly understands that he/she is now living the good life. This fish has lived outside in 100 degree heat in summer and under the ice in winter. It has survived eagles flying overhead and pre-adolescent boys roaming the neighborhood. It would be pretty tragic if it died now. Wish me luck!
Goldie is very pretty!
ReplyDeleteFreshwater fish aren't too hard, and gold fish are even easier. I have a 55 gallon aquarium (empty now, as my parents didn't want to take care of it for me when I went to college). If I could take care of that many fish all though middle and high school, you will do fine with just a gold fish.
What kind of filter do you have for the tank?
Attaining the fake university degree is now just a few clicks away.
ReplyDeleteCarp are hard to kill, but it can happen. Chlorine in city water is the quickest way to kill one. With a fish that size in a ten gallon tank the only thing you want to do is change out 2/3rd's of the water once a month. I use a siphon, makes the process pretty easy. Of course my Oranda is half that size so I only swap water every 8 weeks.
ReplyDeleteThe filter (gifted with the tank) is an all-in-one hood/light/filter thing that looks like this: http://www.aquahobby.com/products/e_eclipse_hood.php
ReplyDeleteAnd I have a 3.5 gallon bucket (dedicated to the fish, and nothing else) sitting out full of water even as we speak so that we always have water ready-to-go.
Thanks for the pointers!
Nice! That means that you don't -have- to clean the gravel out so much, as it isn't the filter media. You'll still probably want to occasionally, though.
ReplyDeleteGoldie is a male gold fish! He has the white flecks on his gill covers (: Also, I have one five inch goldfish in a 48 gallon tank --- I think I do 25% water changes every two weeks, sometimes more. These guys tend to mess water quality up at an astounding rate. I would do 50% changes every week with a gravel siphon (:
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