How to improve your goldfish’s life
If you keep your goldfish in a small bowl of tapwater, without any filter, it will live an excruciatingly painful, unnaturally short life. The fact that it can’t bark or meow to tell you so means NOTHING.
Imagine if someone locked you in an airtight room. They weren’t totally cruel though – you had access to a regular food supply and plenty of water, so you’d survive okay for a while. But after a few days or weeks (depending on the size of a room) you’d be on the verge of death, suffocating, covered in your own waste – until they decided to open the doors, let in a blast of fresh air, hose down the room, then lock you back in again. You could probably survive like that for a couple of years before you died, right? But it would be a pretty horrible life. And if someone caught your persecutor, they’d be thrown in jail for a very long time.
But that’s exactly what you’re doing to your goldfish by keeping it in an unfiltered bowl.
Goldfish are very hardy. Their popularity as pets is partly down to the fact that they can survive conditions that would kill many other living creatures. But SURVIVING AINâ€T THRIVING. You have a duty to your pet to make sure its quality of life is acceptable.
Obviously, unless you’re a complete psycho, you didn’t buy the fish so you could spend a couple of months torturing it to death – you just didn’t realise what it needed, and you were probably misinformed by the person you bought the fish from. So here are a few simple steps you can take to improve your goldfish’s life. He won’t be able to purr, wag his tail, or tell you how grateful he is – but you can be sure he would if he could.
Tank size
Common goldfish (like the regular orange ones you buy in pet shops at about 2inches long) SHOULD live for several decades – many of them can live for over forty years and the longest-lived goldfish in the world was 47. They SHOULD reach a length of between 10†and 15â€. Roundbodied “fancy goldfish†(the ones with boogly eyes, fantails etc) won’t get that big, but SHOULD end up somewhere around the size of a grapefruit depending on the variety. If your “goldfish†is in fact a baby koi, you’re going to need a huge tank because they can end up several feet long and can live for up to fifty years. They are not really suitable aquarium fish – they belong in a pond.
Look at your cute, baby goldfish swimming around in his little bowl. Then think about whether he’d fit in that bowl if he were a foot long. No, of course he wouldn’t, right? But that's not a problem, because goldfishes “grow to fit the bowlâ€. That’s what the nice man in the pet shop / your mum / your teacher told you.
Which is true, sometimes. Whereas some fish will just carry on growing regardless until they die, some goldfish survive for extended periods in containers that are too small. They never reach their full size because they are stunted – an extremely painful condition which also compromises the fishes immune system, leaving them wide open to the threat of disease. Your tiny goldy may still look as cute as the day you brought him home to the Bowl of Doom, but the reality is his organs are becoming more and more compressed inside his little body. Eventually you may notice as his spine begins to curve and he gets sick more and more often. He won’t live for 20 years – he’ll be lucky to make it to 2 or 3, and when he does die it won’t be “old ageâ€, it’ll be because of complications caused by the stunting you put him through.
To have a chance at a decent life, goldfish need 30 US gallons MINIMUM for the first fish, and 10 US gallons extra for every subsequent fish. You can keep them in a smaller tank when they are babies but that means upgrading to bigger tanks regularly as they grow. To give your goldfish the best life you can, think about working up to a 75g tank – or, ideally, a pond.
You can find second-hand tanks on eBay or through classified ads etc fairly cheaply, and they often come with filters etc thrown in, so start keeping an eye out for a bargain even if your fish doesn’t need rehoming straight away – they can grow very quickly. You can re-sell your old tanks once they have been outgrown.
If you decide that you aren’t prepared to get a proper home for your fish, take him back to the shop, or find him a new owner – one who understands the work involved.
If you need to rehome your goldfish, bear in mind that you should NEVER release goldfish into wild ponds or waterways as they can out-compete native species and damage ecosystems. Try advertising for someone who will take him (and understands what fishkeeping involves), or who has a fishpond.
Flushing your goldfish down the toilet does not mean he will find his way through the sewers to a lovely river where he can live happily ever after. It means he will be battered to death as he chokes on the various cleaning agents in the system. If you are going to kill your fish at least have the guts to do it as quickly and painlessly, and face up to the fact that you are taking his life because you were to lazy to look after him properly.
Water quality & Filters
Fish excrete ammonia. Ammonia is poisonous to fish. If you haven’t got a filter in your little fishbowl, you need to be doing 100% water changes every single day to keep the ammonia down a level where it’s not hurting your goldfish.
But you can’t be bothered with that, right?
The best way to make sure your goldfish is happy and you aren’t running around with buckets of water every day is to invest in a bigger tank and a filter. These vary in size and price but you can pick them up very cheaply on eBay or through classified ads etc. With a little research you can probably find one for under a tenner. For the price of a round of drinks, you can improve your pet’s life a thousandfold -- and make maintenance a lot easier for yourself.
So, let’s assume you’ve done the decent thing and bought a nice big tank and a filter.
Most filters work in two ways – mechanically and biologically.
Mechanically – the filter contains a sponge, floss etc. As the water passes through the sponge, gunk gets caught in this before being returned to the tank.
Biologically – the filter provides an excellent breeding ground for “good bacteria†These are found in the air around us, so no extra outlay needed there. There are two types of bacteria – one type that consumes Ammonia and turns it into Nitrite, one that consumes Nitrite and turns it into Nitrate.
Nitrate is still poisonous to fish, but a hell of a lot less poisonous than ammonia or nitrite. So once your filter is up and running you can change the water a lot less often than three times a week, and your goldfish will still be happy.
However: The most important thing to realise once you’ve got your filter up and running is that tap water contains chlorine. That’s to kill bacteria and stop us all dying of cholera = great! But it will also kill the bacteria in your filter = not great.
So you need to invest in a bottle of tapwater conditioner (there are various brands). Most of them only require a couple of drops for a tank’s worth of water (follow the instructions on the bottle though) so once you’ve dug deep into your pockets for this (about £5) it’ll last you for ages. All of them do the same thing – they get rid of the chlorine, so you can put the water into your tank without killing off the “good bacteria†in your filter.
The instructions your filter comes with probably tell you to replace the sponge / filter media every month or so. Ignore it. You want to keep hold of your bacteria colony. Just give your sponge a squeeze in the old tank water (while it’s in the bucket waiting to be poured away, not while it’s in the tank) to rinse out the actual gunk. Don’t rinse it under the tap – because tapwater contains chlorine, remember?
Bacteria colonies usually take around a month to fully establish (this process is often called “cycling†a tank) so for the first month your filter is running, you need to stick to the regular water changes you were doing before (you WERE doing the regular water changes, weren’t you?) to make sure your fish stays happy. After a month or so you can start doing water changes less often. This is where buying that bigger tank really pays off – instead of changing your fishbowl water every day (or feeling guilty as your fishy slowly suffocates before your very eyes) you can change water once a week (or even once a fortnight if the tank is big enough) instead.
Plants & Decor
Nitrates (the end product of your bacteria cycle) are poisonous to fish… but food for plants. You might want to add a couple of live plants to your tank, and they will help keep the nitrates down (although they are NOT a substitute for regular water changes). Your goldfish may eat some of them so stick to the cheap ones. Big chain petshops often do “3 for £5†deals on plants, and plenty of eBay sellers provide them. You can also find freebies on some internet forums – quite often people will send you their offcuts for the price of P&P. Lots of aquarium plants can just be shoved into the gravel and don’t need any particular care or time spending on them.
Make sure your tank gets enough light though, or they will remove oxygen from the water rather than adding it.
As well as helping with your water quality and providing a more natural environment for your fish, plants will also keep your algae levels low as they will compete for the same nutrients in the water, so that means less cleaning for you to do.
Fish feel more secure if they have some hiding places, so you should make sure that your tank décor includes something they can hide behind/under.
Changes you can make right away:
If you need time to save up for a new tank and filter, there are some immediate changes you can make right away that will ease your fishes suffering. These are NOT long-term solutions.
Start doing daily water changes using a tapwater conditioner.
As well as making sure your fish is not being poisoned by the ammonia in his bowl, this will give the bacteria you need for your filter a chance to establish themselves on the décor and gravel in your tank. When you set your filter up it should start working more quickly – but you still need to carry on your regular water changes for the whole month whilst the filter is maturing.
Reduce the amount you are feeding your fish
The more you feed him, the more ammonia he produces in his waste. Whilst he’s waiting for his new tank, feed him less and have one “fast day†a week.
Shopping list:
Now you’ve decided to improve your goldfish’s life, here are the things you need to beg, buy or borrow right away:
A bigger tank
A filter
Tapwater conditioner
Things to buy as soon as you can:
A gravel vac – to help hoover up the poo etc from the bottom of your tank and to make water changes easier – instead of scooping water out with a cup you can siphon it out.
A bucket to be used only for water changes – to minimise the likelihood of detergents etc getting into your fishes tank
Live plants – to reduce nitrates and provide shelter for your fish
Proper algae scrubber -- to make sure you don't scratch the tank or transfer cleaning chemicals etc into it.
By putting a little effort in and shopping around, you can probably pick up all this – and change your fishie’s life -- for around £60. If he lives for twenty years, which he very well might now that you’re looking after him properly, then that’ll have cost you the princely sum of 25p a month to keep him happy and healthy throughout his life. Compared to catfood, that's an absolute bargain.
Good luck to you and your fish!
My mothers friend has a goldfish thats 16 years old, Lived in a 2 gallon tank all its life, It has grown a funny shape but it's now in a 5 foot tank after I read an article someone posted a while back, See below:
I decided not to get Moores but to look for some white cloud minnows to keep him company.
