Hello Everyone,
So I had some thoughts about fish keeping and I wanted to get this down in writing. When I first started fish keeping around May 2018 I was looking for something that would help bring me joy while I recovered from a brain injury. Now within the first while I was researching, and trying to figure out what was the best way to care for my fish. Now that I have had them for a while I have found that there is a lot of different information out there. I found it difficult to narrow it down to how many fish are supposed to be in a tank and if there’s too much bioload etc…
Well I will tell you I have two tanks one 15 Gallon with 5 red eye tetras and some shrimp which I haven’t seen in a while so they may have been eaten, hard to say. I have another tank with 2 Common Goldfish and 2 Mini Plecos(yes I realize it is overstocked and am working on getting a larger tank for them) Anyway, I have seen on a lot of fish keeping web pages that you need to do water changes every week etc… and I honestly don’t think that’s true. I think you do need water changes periodically to keep your fish healthy but I also think it should depend on the fish themselves and how dirty the tank is getting. So with my goldfish tank I check the tank everyday and look at the colour of the water, how the fish are doing, how scummy the bottom is getting, and if it is starting to get gross, or the water is starting to look poor quality then I do a 30% water change. My fish are growing and doing well.
So get to the point you say. My point is by the usual calculations my goldfish tank is over stocked. I have 2 common goldfish which are getting large and two plecos which are also doing well. I have noticed recently they are getting less room to swim so I will be upgrading them to a larger tank in the near future so they have more swimming room. The plan is to upgrade them to a 72 gallon. The calculations are as follows and what I have been going by 20G for the first goldfish and 10G for each after. The plecos were put in there because I needed something to eat the algae. I had setup my tank near a window and didn’t think it would be a problem. I have found though my fish are happy and growing. So I feel like that is a good indication that they are healthy. They greet me when I go to feed them and act normal. Now I do want them to have more room to swim because overall I think that would be better for their health. That’s why the bigger tank is in the works. I think there’s lots of misinformation out there about goldfish keeping and please think carefully before purchasing a goldfish. They certainly aren’t made to go in a bowl but can be kept happily in an aquarium.
These are one persons thoughts on how to care for goldfish. Leave a comment if there’s something you would like to add.
Gamers Illogical 