New To Goldfish!

[Lord Spooky]

Ok someone was talking about goldfish and ive always actually wanted a few. A few questions for all of you. What size tank should they be kept in? What is a good kind of starter goldfish? Finally i hear they will eat any plants(live plants) that are in a tank.. is that true? I think i like these guys...

 

[demonmagus]

most people would say common goldfishes belong in a pond, but I believe tokis has some (not sure how many) in a 125 gallon with heavy filtration - fancy goldies, 20 gal for the first and then add 1 more per 10g, so a 50g tank would hold 4 fancies, again loads of filters. They are all the same species but fancies usually get bullied by commons - I think they're all good 'starters' in the appropiate tank

 

[DevUK]

To expand a little, definately don't keep common's with fancies. Fancies are not particularly good swimmers so are fairly slow moving. You'll find the commons will fin nip and harras, but also at feeding time they'll get all the food as they are faster (and goldfish will just eat and eat and eat...)

As magus says above, 20 us gallons is needed for the first fancy goldfish, and 10gal more per additional fish. This is because goldfish are massive waste producers. They are essentially a floating poop factory This ammount of water is to dilute the waste. They also need the swimming space, and common goldfish need a lot more swimming space, so the 20gal rule doesn't apply to them as such.

I have a 20gal long tank with 1 fancy and some WCMMs They all get on fine (though you have to watch out for small fish - if it'll fit in a goldfish's mouth it might attempt to eat it). My WCMMs are too big for my fancy to eat and he doesn't bother them. Infact, initially he tried to shoal with them Very cute

You also need to have good filtration. On my 20gal (70litres) I have a Fluval 204 external filter which is rated up to 200 litres! (44gal) Does a good job too Over filtering is better than under filtering.

So, I would say, get a 30 gal if you can, and get a couple of fancies. Shubunkin are quite cute, black moores are cool. Mine was sold as an oranda but he hasn't developed a "wen" (lumpy bit on the head of orandas), so I think he's a veil tail or something similar. Also get a small shoal of White Cloud Mountain Minnows, say 6 - 8 if possible. They are suited to cold water and have plenty of character I also have zebra danios in my tank, but they are more tropical (though they can cope with lower temps unlike other danios).

Hope this helps

*edit*

Heres a pic of my fancy goldfish in his 20 gal

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I agree with all of the above, the only thing i'd like to add is that bubble eye goldfish tend to be the smallest variety of fancy goldfish, most only grow to 5inches tops- because of this i think you can stretch the 20gal for first fancy 10gal for everyone after that rule of thumb if you have good filtration in the tank, and the tank is a long one rather than a tall one. I think with a 50gal long you could probably quite easily get away with 6 bubble eye goldfish if you had good filtration, larger varieties of fancy goldfish which grow to 9inches long like the veiltail fancy goldfish should definately be kept to only 4 in something like a 50gal due to their larger size.
Technically a 75gallon long tank is the bare minimum size tank for a pair or trio of non-fancy goldfish like comets, commons and london shubunkin goldfish etc, but i would personally recommend at least a 100gallon long tank, as keeping these types of goldfish myself in a 125gal tank, i have seen how large/long they can grow and how active they can be. Overall though, non-fancy goldfish do very well in ponds of at least 3ft depth, so if you have space for a pond and want these sorts of goldfish, i would say this is the most ideal and cheapest option for housing non-fancy goldfish. Most non-fancy goldfish will grow between 12-15inches+ long. Fancy goldfish on the other hand cannot tolerate freezing temps like goldfish like comets and commons, so should only be kept in indoor aquariums, ponds or heated outdoor ponds (unless of course you live in a part of the world where you do not experience freezing weather during wintertime at all).

I know these recommend minimum amount of gallon estimates may sound like a lot of gallons for keeping goldfish, but they are in fact rather large growing fish- i have even seen common goldfish up to 2ft long, more like koi size. A lot of people's childhood memories of keeping fish was putting a goldfish or two in a bowl and then finding it dead a couple of weeks or months later.
But in actual reality, goldfish need far more than a bowl to be kept in if they are to lead a healthy life with good quality of lfie, and if well cared for in a tank or pond of decent size/suitable amount of gallons, given a good diet and the tank is well cared for and cleaned on a regular once weekly basis etc, most goldfish can expect to live anywhere between 15-30 years old or more- i believe the oldest goldfish in the world, which was just a standard common goldfish, lived to 47 years old. So they can be rather long term commitment fish, however they are very enchanting, intelligent and inquistive fish which are full of personality and make a great choice when it comes to fish and pets .

Here are some of my goldfish;

My goldfish tank (lots of huge peices of bogwood/driftwood and some fine white silica sand);

It currently has 9 goldfish in it at current, they will be moved out into my 3200gal pond though later on this year. If i was to keep the goldfish permanently in the tank for years to come, i would probably have to reduce their numbers down to 5.

 

[freshwaterfishlover]

It's 30g for the first 10g for everyone after the first.

 

[Azaezl]

Just to add I think you can have plants with goldfish,as long as you go for certain ones and plant them well.

In my goldie tank I have a black moor, calico telescope & 6 WCMM and there tank has loads of vallis growing in it, it loves all their waste and has gone mad growing since I moved the tropicals out and the goldies in.

In their old tank I tried a variety of plants, elodea(sometimes it's called goldfish weed) is a no no, with the leaves being so tiny it's just too tempting for the goldies to nibble at it, although mine didn't touch it at first, until I went away for 2 days and came back to just bare stumps

I had broader leaved plants, various hygrophilia which they didn't eat(or even try to) but managed to uproot by digging around in the sand for food, but I have a soloution for that...pebbles. I put the plant in and placed pebbles as close to the centre of the plant as was possible, I also put a few plants together and surrounded them by pebbles as well as a few inbetween, so basically it was like a pile of pebbles with plants growing out between the gaps, the pebbles were too big for them to move, so they couldn't uproot the plants. That was the old tank, in this one I just have vallis and a little bit off a moss ball stuck on a bit of wood(which they ocassionally nibble at if I'm late feeding).

This is there tank;

and the pebble thing, I try to put it as close to the center as possible;

HTH