Staging An Intervention

[fourthtimelucky]

Hi everyone,

Having posted recently about my friend keeping a goldfish in a tiny bowl and persuading him to buy a new tank for it, I found out one of my OTHER friends has TWO in a glass bowl. Probably less than a gallon -- unfiltered, natch -- one looks like a common goldy, and the other I *think* is a baby koi . Anyway, I gave him the spiel about how he needed to get them proper tank, use tapwater conditioner etc. Well, he just didn't seem too interested.

BUT I think his girlfriend (also a mate of mine) might be easier to persuade. So I plan to put together a little document "How to improve the life of your goldfish" for her (with this site's address at the bottom of course). I may not be able to persuade them to buy a 40g+ tank, but hopefully I can at least persuade them to treat the fishies a bit better and start planning a rehome when they get a bit bigger. They are brand new and only babies still... perhaps there is still hope for these little guys!

Has anyone had any experience in successfully turning around other people's behaviour when it comes to goldies (or other fish)? Any hints and tips? I feel so sad for the fishies... but I don't want to get a reputation as the bossy fish lady and start pissing everyone off either. If anyone has any thoughts about how to do this as tactfully as possible that would be really helpful.

I will post the first draft of my info sheet when I have one to make sure there are not any heinous blunders on it.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Just educate them with good accurate info- if your friends have a heart and conscience and respect/trust your information, they'll listen to you and do their best to look after their fish . They may be stubborn at first, but times are changing- fish are increasingly no longer being treated as the cheap throw-away pets they once were, as more and more people realise how intelligent these animals are and how they have character and personality and how many types of fish can live for many decades if looked after properly etc . Tell your friends this;

Common goldfish can often easily grow up to 15inches or more given enough space, and can live to over 40years old (there was a common goldfish that made it into the records as the oldest lived goldfish at 47 years old). They are intelligent fish and deserve as much care and respect as any other fish in the hobby, whether it is a prize £125 zebra pleco or a bog standard $2 guppy etc.
I would advise a minimum of a 75gallon long tank for housing a common goldfish since they grow so large. Common goldfish make good pond fish since they can easily handle freezing conditions the pond may face during winter and enjoy the space that a lot of ponds have. A 5ft long by 3ft wide and 3ft deep pond is a good minimum size for a goldfish pond.

Koi have been known to live up to 50+ years old and can grow up to 3ft long, they really do not make suitable aquarium fish except for those people who have truly massive aquariums (i.e. 12ft long by 6ft wide or larger). A little bowl is no place for fish which can easily exceed a foot in length.
The easiest and cheapest way to house koi is to simply dig a pond of at least 4ft depth, and 12ft in length and 6ft wide.

Both koi and goldfish are sociable fish and enjoy the company of their own kind, generally speaking you should keep them in pairs or trio's at the least.

There are a lot of myths in the hobby, like how fish will grow to the size of the bowl they are kept in. This is not true at all. Most fish will grow regardless of how smaller aquarium you put them in, while a lot of other fish will suffer from stunted growth. Stunted growth is caused by a lot of factors, but primarily by people putting the fish in an environment far too small for the fish to grow properly in it, and letting bad or unstable water quality conditions take a toll on fishes health (bad water quality is always a constant problem in goldfish bowls, due to no filtration and the fact that a lot of coldwater fish like koi and goldfish produce a lot of waste, which makes ammonia levels go through the roof in small habitats like goldfish bowls etc).
Fish suffering from stunted growth will die sooner or later, often way before their time would naturally be up, and to be honest it is a cruel/harsh way to kill a fish, with fish like goldfish being so tough, goldfish often take a long time struggling in bad water quality conditions before they finally lose hope and give up.

In an established (not cycling) tank set up, you should do a 30-60% once weekly water change with dechlorinator on the tank and also clean the substrate and check the filter is working well. In cycling/new tank set ups you should have a water quality test kits for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates and test the water on a regular basis and do a small water change whenever you see ammonia or nitrites or excessive (over 40) nitrates. In an unfiltered goldfish bowl, i would advise doing once daily 100% water changes with dechlorinator until you get a suitably sized tank set up for the fish with filtration (which is highly adviseable).

Doing regular water changes will improve the fishes long term health, growth and life expectancy and reduce the chances of bad or unstable water quality conditions, while giving the fish a suitably sized aquarium or pond with plenty of space to allow it to grow properly, swim properly and behave normally will improve the fishes quality of life by a lot and improve its overal life expectancy and long term health. So its very important to provide fish these sorts of things if you are to be a good and responsable fishkeeper who cares properly for their pets .

Ultimately, if you cannot look after your fish properly, then really you should rehome them to someone else who can as every fish deserves the chance to live a healthy and happy life and not to be condemed to die a slow death as a juvenile/baby fish in some goldfish bowl .

edit: sp

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Thanks! I am halfway through writing my info sheet... I hope it's okay to lift a few factoids from your post!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks! I am halfway through writing my info sheet... I hope it's okay to lift a few factoids from your post!

Glad to help , if you have any questions feel free to ask etc .

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Hi, this is my first draft. I have deliberately not gone into too much detail about cycling etc but tried to focus on practicalities & keep it simple -- I will then add a list of links to articles with more detail at the end. What do you think?


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!

 

[merry78]

10 thumbs up!!
non-offensive, to the point, and very convincing.
if i were a goldfish torturer (which i was until i was educated), it would stop me in my tracks.
nice work.

 

[fourthtimelucky]

Thanks Merry78!

Do you think it is worth suggesting (in the changes you can make right away section) that they clean half their gravel & decor at a time when waiting for their filter to arrive? e.g. take half out & thoroughly rinse it and bash it about, then replace in tank?
My Dad swore by this for our goldfish (and did so even after the filter was installed) and I think on balance you probably end up with cleaner gravel than with vac-ing as well as preserving some bacteria. I know the general theory is that the bacteria all live on your filter but I do think that some lives on the gravel otherwise it wouldn't work as a seeding material for new filters.

Also any websites (other than this one - thats a given!) to add to a list of useful resources at the end would be very helpful.

 

[merry78]

Thanks Merry78!

Do you think it is worth suggesting (in the changes you can make right away section) that they clean half their gravel & decor at a time when waiting for their filter to arrive? e.g. take half out & thoroughly rinse it and bash it about, then replace in tank?

yes and no.
yes because obviously the cleaner the tank the better off the goldies are.
no because there is a tendency with many people (who are talked into making some effort to improve, but don't really want to), to justify putting off the thing that is really needed by taking a small step in the right direction. This means, i am concerned that your friend will be convinced to properly clean the small tank, and then drag their feet even more on upgrading the tank because ' the water is extra clean now, and he seemed ok before, surely he'll be fine in that tank for now...'
i believe that this kind of thinking is going to be your (and the goldy's ) worst enemy, and i think the best way to fight it is to emphasise that the fish need a bigger tank now, rather than offering ways to improve the goldy's life in it's current container.
having said that, anything they do to improve the fishes' life is a blessing, so either way would be better than nothing.
are they scientifically minded? if so, you could offer some fish vet advice of the type that is given here
water quality and more... to help them see how necessary proper care is.
once again, good on you for helping da fishies!!
merry.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

a. You have some of your facts wrong. It is not really true that goldfish need 30gallons for the first one and 10 for every one after that- you simply cannot apply such rules to goldfish as they vary so much in their max size. A bubble eye goldfish will be lucky if it grows to 5inches, and a 25gallon long is more than adequate for a pair of such a small growing goldfish. But a common goldfish which can grow to over 15inches long, even a 40gal tank is too small in the long run, i would advise at least 75gallons for a single common goldfish minimum etc. For most fancy goldfish in general, 20gallons for the first goldfish and 10 for every one after that is generally acceptable, although my point is is that such rules of thumb do not apply to all goldfish since there are so many dozens of varieties, varying a great deal in their care and requirements etc.


These recommend tank size things though are for the long term keeping of the fish in question though. For example a goldfish can be kept in a 10gal tank if it is just for the short term and the goldfish is still very small (i.e. 3inches long or less). Right now i would be encouraging your friend to upgrade to anything larger right now, it may take some convincing to get them to fork out for a 75gallon long aquarium or larger, however for now at least in something like a 20-30gallon tank the goldfish will be able to grow and live in a great deal more comfort and display natural behavior etc- the goldfish should in itself will start to convince the owner to get it a larger tank when it is in much better conditions in which it can really come to life in etc .

b. With the cycling thing, i think you need to be more specific. For a tank cycled with fish, to be finished/established after a month is very optimistic in my opinion, and you do not mention water quality testing kits for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and ph at all etc. This article in the link below is a very well written one on cycling, it is informative and friendly and straight to the point etc and explains all;


http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=10099


With planting and nitrates, i wouldn't bother with planting at all in goldfish tanks since all live plants generally succumb to goldfish in aquariums sooner or later and dying plants can actually make nitrate problems worse sometimes. Regular small water changes are the best non-plant way to lower excessive nitrates (i.e. over 40), nitrates are not a problem in the tank either way though unless they are in excessive numbers.



I think you are doing a good thing by writing this article and i commend your efforts, however i just feel that a couple of things could do with a little working on . The less you write but the more info/facts you get across the better as you don't want to over-load your friends with a huge stack of papers on goldfish keeping, they will be a lot more likely to read it and mentally take it in if the info is set out in small, informative and easy to read chunks .

 

[JamieBailie]

REPLY TO BELOW POST:

Sorry, I was quoting it in another thread and must have accidently pressed submit here.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Umm, so JamieBailie what exactly was the point of you quoting that very long post exactly ???

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