Need help find COLD water and Schooling fish

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TexasRanger

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I grew up around fish in my family, when we was in vietnam, pretty much all our family build a fish aquarium we have arowana , oscar , all kind of tropical fish.

I was off this hobby for so many years, lately I feel i want to go back to this hobby.

I bought a 20 gallon fish tank, got it all set up, now I was looking for only 1 type of fish, that can handle cold water ( without heater ) and they must be schooling fish, like when you tap hand to the glass, they all coming.... i was looking at bloodfin tetra mabe buy 9 of those.

 
Welcome! What are the dimensions of the tank? That's the first step to figuring out what kind of fish are suited to your tank, and then your water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels; water hardness; pH level, e.c.t.) since different species thrive in varying conditions.

Your first pick, bloodfin tetras, are unfortunately tropical fish and as such wouldn't be able to live without a heater without possible complications or stress for the fish.
Have you looked into celestial pearl danios? They're a gorgeous schooling fish that can live without a heater, and because of that, they make a great species for coldwater tanks. They prefer a pH of around 6-7 and soft to medium water hardness, but I've found that they can quite happily tolerate harder water with a slightly higher pH.
 
When you say schooling, do you mean fish that swim together as a group, behaving in a co-ordinated manner? There are very few fresh water fish which do this I'm afraid.

Most of the fish we think of as cold water are actually temperate. If the room the tank is in will drop to no lower than 64 deg F in the middle of the coldest night, there are fish suitable for a 20 gallon. For example, those in the genus Tanichthys (and some of them are native to Vietnam)

But not zebra danios as they need a long tank because they are very active swimmers.
 
Welcome! What are the dimensions of the tank? That's the first step to figuring out what kind of fish are suited to your tank, and then your water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels; water hardness; pH level, e.c.t.) since different species thrive in varying conditions.

Your first pick, bloodfin tetras, are unfortunately tropical fish and as such wouldn't be able to live without a heater without possible complications or stress for the fish.
Have you looked into celestial pearl danios? They're a gorgeous schooling fish that can live without a heater, and because of that, they make a great species for coldwater tanks. They prefer a pH of around 6-7 and soft to medium water hardness, but I've found that they can quite happily tolerate harder water with a slightly higher pH.
Bloodfin tetra naturally range down to 18°C, which is subtropical and suitable for unheated tanks in certain climates/houses.

 
I have only guppies, goldfish & white cloud minnows in my cold water tanks. The guppies, all male, do hang out together as do the WC’s.
 
The issue with any goldfish, particularly fancy goldfish like telescope-eyes that are largely sold in pet shops, is that they grow and they grow rather quickly. While they won't grow overnight as some people would like to have you believe, they can potentially reach their full size by 1-3 years old. Relative to their lifespan of 10 up to 30 or 40 years (in some cases), this is regarded as a very fast rate of growth.

Telescopes are generally seen to grow up to 5 inches (or around 12cm) but can get much bigger, some known to exceed 8 inches (20 cm). As such, they need a lot of space to swim around. A younger - and thus smaller - one will be fine in a standard-sized 20g tank, but will eventually outgrow it with plants*, ornaments, filtration, and the fish's swimming habits taken into account. Upgrading to a larger tank in the future would be recommended.

Goldfish are known to be quite greedy and have a large bio-load, so regular feeding habits and maintenance (filter cleaning and water changes primarily) would be advised.

* An important thing to note with most goldfish is that they will probably eat whatever plants you have in your aquarium. Heed the warning and pick out hardy plants that can withstand general nibbling.
 

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