My Goldfish Retires in FLORIDA!

Hey goldfish lovers, here's an interesting article! Maybe he'll want to retire in a few years and move into a goldfish Florida Condo, yes?

Did you know that your goldfish can live for over 10 years? Under the right conditions he can live even longer but most never make it past the first year! If you want your goldfish to live long and healthy lives, you’ve got to provide the proper environment.

It’s a common misconception that a goldfish can live in a tiny bowl. In order for him to survive for any length of time, you’ll need to do frequent water changes and cleanings of the bowl – that’s a lot of work and living in a bowl isn’t much fun so it’s best to keep your fish in a regular tank with a proper filtration system.

The size of your tank depends on how many goldfish you want to keep in it. A good rule of thumb is to allocate about 7 gallons of water per fish, so if you want 5 goldfish a 35 gallon tank is recommended. It’s better to keep fish in a long tank that has plenty of surface to air space as goldfish like to have a lot of oxygen in their water. A tall hexagon shaped tank won’t be the best tank for these fish.

Goldfish like their water to be a little on the cool side – between 65 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit so in most cases a heater is not necessary. You should, however have a thermometer in the tank and take the appropriate measures if the temperature gets above 72 degrees as higher temperatures can make your fish more susceptible to disease. Bear in mind that most other tropical fish like their water on the warm side, so you will have to be careful what fish you put in the tank with your goldfish.

Provide the goldfish tank with a filtration system that is appropriate for the size of the tank. If you are keeping the fancy tailed goldfish, don’t use a system that will provide too much current as this can make it difficult for them to swim around. You’ll also want to provide periodic water changes as you should with any tank.

One of the main reasons that fish become sick is due to poor water quality. To keep your goldfish healthy, make sure you provide the filtration and water changes but also be careful about overcrowding and overfeeding. Too many fish or too much decaying food and waste will cause the water in your tank to become toxic to your fish.

Keeping goldfish can be a wonderful hobby and with minimal work, you can get a tank up and keep it running with healthy fish.

About the Author

Lee Dobbins is owner and editor of epet-center.com – Your E Pet Center where you can learn more about keeping goldfish

Crack for goldfish???

To paraphrase Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Vacation “…I couldn’t be more surprised if I woke up in the morning with my head stapled to the carpet”!

I decided that I would take the advice of a friend who suggested that I feed my goldies canned peas. “Peas” I said, “Are you sure”? Yes, they were sure because they had fed their goldfish some peas fresh from the can and “They loved it”! Well, it sounded sort of strange since I’ve never heard of feeding canned ANYTHING to an aquarium fish but I thought why not; they do come from carp after all.

I figured that they would sniff around the peas then turn their collective noses and wait for the good stuff. I was sooooo wrong! My gentle little goldfish tank went ballistic with activity! Those nice little goldies went nuts over the pleasure-pods! At one point I thought I was raising betas the way they were fighting one another. Suddenly, my lone surviving and peace loving bubblehead goldie rammed Sal, my alpha fish.

Mimi, my bubblehead likes to hide in her pimpin’ pink castle but when the peas dropped in, she rammed my alpha fish to get to the green caviar. It was a riot in a 10-gallon tank! Finally, they finished their treat and everything went back to normal. It just goes to show you that like people, under the right circumstances and with the proper motivation, even a goldfish can change personality and do things they normally would not do. I may have accidentally just discovered the “crack” of the goldfish world. :)

West and Wewaxation! Huh-huh-huh...

The tank is quite tonight so now is a great time to talk about vacation. It's been a while since my last vacation and it was beginning to show. I work at a psychiatric hospital which, at times and as you can imagine can be stressful. One of the things we harp on to our patients is to make sure that they take time out for themselves. And yet, oddly enough, it's the care-givers whether professional or not that seem to get the least amount of quality rest and relaxation. I've been on both ends of that stick taking care of elderly and ill family members as well as patients.

Anyway, take care of yourselves and get the rest you need!

Now, back to my vacation! :)

Then there were 3...

Wilma has passed on to Aqueria.
So far not to many tank-mates left:
Sal, Lenny & Mimi.

A Perfect Balance?

A Perfect Balance?

My Human is at it again. He’s tinkering with my aquarium tank but I don’t mind really because I sure could use a little distraction now that Wanda’s gone. She was a good friend but we were never really close. She didn’t start out with the other frylings and moments before we were shipped to a pet store in Lizard Lip, Mo., she was dumped into our tank for the ride.

Like I said, she was nice but a real loner but she also be very funny sometimes especially during our ride here to the Springfield area. It was kind of dark in the box and she kept bumping into Lenny and she even tail-nipped him a couple of times until Lenny had finally had enough. Lenny swam up to her to get her back but she quickly turned and kissed Lenny right on his fish lips. The whole box of goldies laughed until we stopped. Once were settled she just kept to herself leaving Lenny just a tad to frustrated for a goldie. Now Lenny just mopes around the tank, sigh, we sure will miss Wanda.

Anyway, like I was saying, My Human keeps tinkering with the tank but I shouldn’t complain I guess. At first I thought he was going to feed us because, after all, goldies can eat ALL day. He was looking for the perfect pH balance; too much alkaline and my scales burn and too little acid…and my scales itch. So he pulls out the test kit, takes out a strip and dips it in the water. Now don’t get me wrong, it was a nice thing to do but really, I thought he was giving us more fish food!

The water was fine and were all doing just fine but something kind of bothered me about the whole test. Humans are always looking for “perfect” in everything they do. It’s a "people" thing I guess but for us fish, perfect is how a fish lives. We get what we can, where we can, and how we can and we call that perfect. If we don’t have tank-mates then it’s perfect; if we have tank-mates, then it’s perfect. If we have a lot, then you guessed it, that’s perfect too!

We’re just goldies living in a world controlled by humans or if we live in the wild (God forbid!) then our circumstances are perfect as well. In other words, perfect is just a state of being and not a state of wanting. So, I guess that's makes us goldies...ahem...perfect!

Sal

Another passing another lesson...

Another Passing & Another Lesson.

Sometime last night, another tank-mate has made the journey to Aquaria. I’ve asked Sal to say a few words but he declined so I’ll fill in for him today. I, the Human, found Wanda as I saw her last night before bedtime nestled near the purple plants. This morning, I found it odd that she was still in the same place.

A close-up view told the story; she had slipped past her watery bonds into the gentle waters of Aquaria where no goldfish feels the pain of Ick nor the sting of parasites. She swims freely through ammonia free waters and gently glides an everlasting perfect Ph. Level. She will be missed by her tank-mates.

It’s been a few hours since the discovery and the tank has returned to normal. Sal zips back and forth; Mimi just hides in her pink castle; Lenny looks a little lost, not sure where to go and Wilma keeps looking for pellets at the purple feeding ring. Life has quickly returned to normal at the Goldfish Condo.

Perhaps they have mastered the ability to overcome life’s heartaches in a way we humans have yet to discover. Sometimes we humans just get stuck when something life changing has occurred. We want so badly to have it “the way it was before” that we continually reach back hoping to reclaim what we once had. Sometimes, it’s as if we are driving in our cars only looking at the rearview mirror at what once was instead of viewing all that is ahead of us.

The tank-mates will grieve in only the way goldfish can perhaps by going about the business of being goldfish. No a bad way to go if you ask me.

Ask Sal a question; just post your thoughts by clicking the comments button.

I can see clearly now . . .

Human here:

Well, I just couldn't stand it anymore, I just had to do a total goldfish tank refill this morning and it looks great! Isn't amazing how just a little change can make such a big difference?

They say that if you really want to succeed, just improve something, anything by only 10% and the world will take notice. So in this case, the world didn't take notice but 5 little goldfish swimming in a 10 gallon aquarium sure did!

Now don't get me wrong, change can certainly provoke anxiety. As soon as I settled the tank, I filled it with water and I added some Start Right as I poured the water into their newly scrubbed tank. It was exciting to put the goldies back into their newly refreshed home.

Once their they all huddled in the corner of the aquarium afraid to venture out! The poor little guys were stressed out! It would be like being transported from the smoggy summer of Los Angeles into the pristine winter wilderness of the high sierras. A real change indeed!

That was a couple of hours ago and they have since adjusted wonderfully. Change almost always brings about anxiety, sometimes mild, sometimes not. Take time to explore something new. Try new music or a new genre of movies or books. Practice something new every week and when a new unknown situation appears, you’ll be better prepared to handle whatever comes your way.

New Stuff!

The Tank-Mates!

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Okay, I admit it . . .I really did not like the pink castle but now that it's here, it needed someting else. Anyway, my human just dipped in a bunch of cool looking albeit fake, plants into the aquarium! Somehow, it feels as if I were swimming in a lake or something. This is going to be a good day!

Sal