Goldfish Keeper Notes

A quiet corner of the internet about fancy goldfish, tank water, and patience.

Welcome. This page has been mostly neglected for a while, but I've been keeping fancy goldfish for a few years now and I figured I'd jot down what I've learned so the next person Googling at midnight because their ryukin is upside down can skip some of the dead ends.

What I keep

Nothing exotic. Two fantails, one oranda (named Biscuit), and a ryukin that I'm pretty sure was sold to me as a fantail. They live in a 55 gallon tank with a sponge filter and a canister. Everyone gets along. Biscuit is the messiest and also the most dramatic :: he wedges himself behind the heater and then panics.

Things I wish I'd known earlier

Feeding

I feed a soaked sinking pellet in the morning and a small portion of defrosted bloodworms or thawed peas in the evening. Peas help with swim bladder issues in fantails. Biscuit would eat until he exploded if allowed, so he's on a strict schedule.

Tank water, briefly

My tap water is on the hard side, around 220 ppm TDS. I don't bother with RO; goldfish are actually happier in slightly hard water. I dechlorinate, let it sit in a bucket overnight to warm to room temperature, and siphon it in slowly. If you're on a chloramine system, a conditioner that handles both chlorine and chloramine is worth the extra couple of dollars.

Disease notes

The only serious illness I've dealt with was flukes, brought in on a plant from a pet store. Salt baths at 0.3% for ten minutes worked for two of the three fish. Prazi dosed in the main tank cleared the third. Quarantine new anything, even a piece of driftwood, for at least two weeks.

A short list of books that aren't nonsense

Updates

I don't update this often. When I do it's usually because something went wrong and I want to remember it next time. If you're reading this and you're stressed about a fish, take a deep breath, test your water, and do a 25% change with temperature-matched dechlorinated water. That solves more than half of everything.