# Our little surprize Goldfish!



## andcatmakes4 (Mar 3, 2012)

Hi all, first time in fish forum so please be gentle.

I took my family to a fair the other day and my daughter won a goldfish. (I thought they no longer did this so dont get me started on the cruelty of the whole thing). 

Anyway we 'rescued' Twinkle and took it home a.s.a.p. We did what all nieve people do with goldfish and put it in tap water (I didnt have a lot of choice it was sunday and I couldnt leave the poor thing in the bag). 
I was possitive it was going to die. It sank straight to the bottom with its fins all squashed in.

First thing next morning I got a aquarium off a friend and ornaments and such, and got some water treatment from the local pet shop and hoped for the best...

Well now nearly a week later and Twinkle is going strong. She (My daughter has decided its a girl) has her fins back up, but is always at the bottom of the tank on the gravel. When she poos its white. My question is does she sound ok? 
Ive never known a fish spend so much time at the bottom of a tank.. and Im sure their poo is normally black. She is eating fine although she waits for it to come to her rather than swim up for it.....


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## magpie (Jan 3, 2009)

Hi there 

Congrats on the new addition! Goldfish, despite what most people tend to think, are actually quite a tricky fish to keep, so some of the information I'm about to give you will probably come as a bit of a shock! I'll try and be gentle though 

Firstly, do you know what kind of goldfish you have? Goldfish can be split in to two basic groups: common or comet goldies which have long, streamlined bodies, single tails and look like a 'normal' fish, and fancy goldies which tend to have shorter, rounder bodies and double tails.

Common goldfish grow to around a foot in length and are really not suitable for aquariums. They will become big, active fish that really need a pond to live in if they are to thrive. Fancies are fine in an aquarium, but it needs to be a big one as they too grow pretty large. Do you know what size aquarium you have? And does it have a filter?

A single fancy goldfish needs a tank of at least 100 litres, with a (preferably external) filter rated for at least double the volume of the tank.

Also, as you have only just got both tank and goldfish, the tank won't be cycled. Which means that there is no build up of good bacteria to get rid of the ammonia that the fish produces, and as ammonia is very toxic to fish this will be making Twinkle feel pretty poorly.

Probably the best thing to do now is get a decent, liquid drop test kit (like the API master kit) so you can see what the water quality is like, and then do partial water changes as necessary to keep the levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as low as possible.

Hope thats of some use to you, and good luck!


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## delca1 (Oct 29, 2011)

I had two gold fish in a smallish tank (my kids wanted them, how easy I thought) I did get an air filter pump following a friends advice so it could be worth investing in one. I'm afraid I am still ignorant about the do's and don'ts although years later I still have one of them. This could be because we up-graded to a pond


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## andcatmakes4 (Mar 3, 2012)

Hi there thanx for your replies. Twinkle is in one of the larger tanks that pet shops sell. Its just a plastic one. but I borrowed it from a friend who had lost her goldfish a few months back.

It does have a filter but not very big and it goes inside the tank. 

Twinkle herself is about 10cm long including her tail. She is more oval shape and has only one tail.. Id say your classic goldfish shape, not the fancy fantail type.

I will go and get some water testing stuff asap. But I dont have access to a pond to move her into. The tank she is in looks HUGE for her we were debating getting her company, seeing all that space kinda makes me wish we rescued more than one.


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## magpie (Jan 3, 2009)

I really wouldn't recommend getting another fish, especially at the moment when the tank will still be cycling. I understand that she is very small at the moment and that the tank looks huge, but remember that she is a tiny baby and will get much, much bigger and faster than you think!

I had a comet goldfish a few years ago that I took on from someone else. He was very small when I got him, probably about the same size as Twinkle, but two years later when I moved him to a pond he was over 9 inches and a big, chunky fish!

Do you know the measurements of the tank? We can work out how many litres it holds from that.


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## andcatmakes4 (Mar 3, 2012)

The tank is 39cm by 22cm. (Pic taken before we added the filter )










This is the best pic I can get of Twinkle


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## magpie (Jan 3, 2009)

Ah yes, I know those tanks. My goldfish came in one of those when I took them in from their previous owner in fact! They are about 20 litres, so very small indeed for goldfish. 

If you plan on keeping Twinkle I would seriously think about getting a much bigger tank asap. I really don't mean to cause upset or sound harsh, but she will be unlikely to survive for very long in such a small volume of water


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## thronesfan (Jun 20, 2012)

I don't have any advice about tanks as I've only ever had pond fish, but just wanted to say my cousin won a goldfish at a fair years ago and my parents offered to put it in our garden pond. We had that fish for about 15 years - we'd have loved to know where it came from as it outlived all the fish we bought from various pet shops and garden centres over the years.


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## Fishyfins (Feb 28, 2009)

Only a youngun. the average lifespan of a goldfish should be about 20-25 years. anything under 15 can usually be seen as the fishkeeper doing something wrong, like not being in a large enough tank, or not enough water changes or something.


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