Goldfish Care – Commons And Fancies In Aquariums.

Goldfish care. The general advice and tips given in this article is to assist hobbyists who keep, or want to keep goldfish. I hope this helps in giving you some insight on keeping your goldfish both healthy and happy.

Aquarium Setups.

Before you even think of buying your goldfish, you need to buy these items for your goldfish care. Note: depending where you live, you may not need some of these items. An aquarium and stand, aquarium hood, fluorescent strip light, thermometer, aquarium filter, with airline tubing, and air stone, gravel, siphon, buckets (used for water changes), freshwater test kits (for checking ammonia, nitrite and nitrate), seeding kit ( for ammonia bacteria etc), ornaments, and plants.

Care of Goldfish.

In part, goldfish care is knowing what to feed them, and when, goldfish are omnivorous and will eat anything they can. There are pre-packaged goldfish food in floating flake and pellet form, that are good for comets and common goldfish. Feeding your fish twice in a day is fine, but only feed them enough which will get eaten in 2 to 3 minutes or so, or you will end up with water quality problems later.

Fancy Goldfish Care.

Fancy goldfish care is different compared to common type goldfish in feeding and aquarium requirements. They need temperatures ranging from 65 to 75 F, so need heating within the tank, also, the temperature should never fall lower than 50F. Fancies should never be let to feed on the surface, as this could cause buoyancy problems and death.feed fancy's sinking pellets or granules. Fancies may well grow up to 6 inches in length, so as a rule keep one fish per 10 gallons of water.

Goldfish Care - Mixing Comets With Fancies.

To understand the problems that relate to trying to keep commons or comet goldfish in the same aquarium as fancies, you need to understand the requirements of each type of goldfish, one of those was the feeding of each, but it's a much wider problem than just the feeding. Comets and common goldfish are cold water fish, they in general require no heating in the tank, they are quicker in movement to the fancies, stronger, and are less likely to succumb to buoyancy problems, most of all they are likely to attack fancy's and injure or kill them. Fancies on the other hand will not survive in cold water, they need heating and can not withstand wide temperature fluctuations. Their movement is slow, and would not be able to compete for food with the common types, so for your goldfish care and health, keep commons, comets and fancies apart.

Vary The Diet.

It is important for your goldfish care and health, that food specially made for goldfish and fancies is what you give to them, but you can give them on occasion peas(with the outer skin removed), bloodworms, and also blanched green leafy vegetables, in the case of fancies it's a good idea to soak these well first, so that they sink, and remove anything that floats on the surface.

Sickness And Disease.

Striving for good health is a priority in good goldfish care, using good practice with your fish and aquarium, disease problems will be very few. Poor house keeping of your fish and aquarium is the main cause of sickness and disease, toxics in the tank, dirty water,, over crowding, poor filtration, stress and rough handling, rapid water temperature changes, and so on, and can go on to create problems with bacteria, viruses, fungi and of course protozoa. Puting new fish into the tank can also bring disease and sickness to the rest of your fish, so its wise to quarantine new fish for a few days to make sure they are ok.Wash new plants, If you experience any problems then speak to your local pet store or vet for advice.

Ammonia, Chlorine Etc.

Chlorine is in most tapwater now, and harmful to fish, for your goldfish care do a 20% water change each week, but run a air stone for 24 hours in the tap water to dispel the chlorine.ensuring the water is also the same temperature as the aquarium. Ammonia and nitrite readings need to be kept at zero, and nitrates as low as possible, ideally at 10ppm or less.