Goldfish People

[RadioHitandRun]

I have customers who was to mix goldfish with everything.

aside from the temp. differences, and the ultra high ammonia the goldfish shoot out, is there any other reason not to mix goldfish with any other kind of fish.


also i need to rummor proven or disproved here

i was told that a goldfish's slim coat has been known to coat other non-goldfish at the gills and suffocate them, is this true?

 

[b.c.f.c]

well my main reason fot it is that i dont think it looks right
ive seen tanks were theres like a few platys maybe a few corys etc... and then the next thing i see is some huge gold fish swim from out of the plants, looks very odd and so unnatural

 

[starrynightxxi]

goldfish get much larger than many tropical fish, and they will eat anything that fits in their mouths. The fish that WON'T fit in their mouths mostly need tanks that are 45-55 gallons+

as for the slime coat, i've never heard that before. plenty of people here keeps other coldwater fish with their goldies. I've had WCMMs with mine for a few months now and they will remain there until they are in danger of being eaten. I've never seen any evidence of them choking...

 

[Jules H-T]

Nah, it's not a problem initially, certainly no fish die as a direct result of slime coat or anything like that.

I appreciate that goldfish like cooler water and their metabolisms ang longevity suffer at higher temps, but if you've got central heating chances are the goldfish is going to be at practically tropical temperatures anyway.

However, with the higher temps, and given how goldfish are such big eaters, they will grow very very rapidly. Then one day, bang, they will decide they are hungry.

I successfully kept goldies with tropicals for months. Was fine until one day 15 odd neons were eaten overnight. Got there in just enough time to see the last one get gobbled.

The more I learn about this hobby, the more I think goldfish (comets or common anyway, silly fancy tails I guess you're OK) really aren't suitable for home aquariums at all. They should be in ponds only IMHO.

 

[Saedcantas]

I certainly agree with you on that one Jules, over the years it's just become more and more apparent that god only knows why Goldies got so popular in the first place.

They are just utterly unsuitable for the majority of people

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

Goldfish were bred for ponds initially. They do need big aquariums and stuff but the temperature thing is a different story. Goldfish have been known to be able to reach temperatures out of this world! well not really but up to something like 105oC.
I have a fantail with tropical fish and, in my opinion, they look fine together.
never heard of the slime coat rummor.
Goldfish don't intentially eat things that fit in their mouths. I have lost 2 peppered corys through my fantail but that is only because of the food that falls to the bottom and the fish eating it. you can see where that goes.
bottom dwellers are to be wary when around goldfish but other than that, other fish should be fine

problem is, some people just think there isn't much choice when it comes to choosing coldwater fish.
they just need some researching to be done to realise there is more than goldfish.

 

[SPLiSH]

Goldfish have been known to be able to reach temperatures out of this world! well not really but up to something like 105oC.

105 degrees celcius? Water boils at 100 degrees celcius. I think they'd get a bit hot. You probably meant fahrenheit.

I've never heard of the slime coat thing either...

 

[pinkdolphin_113]

HAHA!! yea 105oF

 

[SPLiSH]

HAHA!! yea 105oF

I was thinking, 'Goldfish are tough, but not THAT tough.....'

 

[ImperfectFaerie]

Thing is tho, outside of enthusiasts- NO ONE KNOWS ANY OF THIS! I'll be the first one to say I was flat out SHOCKED when I started learning about fish and learned that goldies need so much room. Never once did anyone tell me growing up with my bowl and 2-3 goldies in it that the reason they died was that they weren't suited for that. The petstore guy always told my mom 'that's why they're cheap, they die so fast'. I wish we could make this knowledge more widely known, but I don't know how we'd go about getting that to happen.

 

[SPLiSH]

Thing is tho, outside of enthusiasts- NO ONE KNOWS ANY OF THIS! I'll be the first one to say I was flat out SHOCKED when I started learning about fish and learned that goldies need so much room. Never once did anyone tell me growing up with my bowl and 2-3 goldies in it that the reason they died was that they weren't suited for that. The petstore guy always told my mom 'that's why they're cheap, they die so fast'. I wish we could make this knowledge more widely known, but I don't know how we'd go about getting that to happen.

When I went to my LFS once someone (not staff) had stuck post-it notes on the front of the goldy tank with a pic of a huge oranda to show how big they got. I told the staff and they said, 'Good idea, leave it there.'

 

[highfire]

Good topic, and very interesting reading.
As you can see from my sigfile I have a goldie, who at the moment is coming up to 2" long. I must admit that in the few months I've had him, he has grown like there's no tomorrow.
I know he shouldn't be in my tank, but I am hoping to re-home him in one of my mum's ponds in the spring time. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't grow too quickly between now and then and start causing problems in my tank.
He's lovely but really should be in a pond.

 

[catxx]

highfire, if the goldie your talking about is the one in your avatar, it won't last in a pond. he's a pearlscale isn't he?

fancies are too slow a swimmer and come winter will have to come back inside if a heron hasn't got them in that time. they're more delicate than commons.

 

[starrynightxxi]

yeah, fancies really ARE suited to aquarium life, strictly, but they're much easier to house. actually if those other fish weren't in that tank i'd say that he'd probably be okay full grown in there as long as you kept up with the water changes. But with those other guys you probably ought to get him his own tank in time. a 20 gallon will do 'im, and shouldn't take up much more room than a 15

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Most slim type goldfish like commons, comets and shubunkins are pure coldwater fsih, while the fancy types are sub tropical.
Putting fish into the wrong temps will shorten their life spans and make them much more prone to illness and desease.

As others have said, goldfish will eat other fish that fit into their mouths, however its usually only the faster slim type goldfish that can actually catch other fish to eat. Most fancy goldfish are just don't have enough agility or speed, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't say no to such opportunities.

Coldwater goldfish which are kept in tropical or sub tropical temps are very difficult to acclimatise into ponds at times, firstly because of the temp shock, but also because the warmer temps prevent the goldfish from putting on the body fats that would otherwise get them through the cold winter.

Oxygen disolves less at warmer temps, which is another reason why coldwater and sub tropical goldfish don't live out their natural life expectancies in tanks which are too warm for them- all goldfish are decended from the same carp type ancestor, which thrives best in cool but highly oxygenated waters.

Fancy goldfish need around a 30gal tank for a pair, with 10gals for every fancy goldie after that, but slim bodied goldfish like comet and common goldfish are a lot more active and grow a lot larger goldfish and need something like at least 75gals just for a pair.




With the slim coat thing, i think somebody must have got confused. I suspect that notion came about from that the fact that goldfish are often fed as feeder fish to tropical predatory fish (this is basically because they are cheap and mass produced easy to get hold of fish).
There is no bennefet in feeding goldfish to tropical predatory fish whatsoever- goldfish have big, thick hard to digest scales, are very fatty/oily fish and also have thick slime coats. I'm sure there are some other issues with them, but thats what i can remember from the top of my head for now.

Feeding goldfish to tropical predatory fish is like me feeding you a fat soaked burger which hard to digest bony bits in it every day of your life- you may be able to survive off it for a while, but eventually the unhealthy diet will have bad consequences on your health (these vary from fish to fish a bit though, but is generally bad news).
So a lot of predatory fish keepers are opting for more healthy feeder fish now days like guppys which are low fat, less boney, have softer and smaller scales and are generally less slimey fish to feed their predatory fish on.