Hi all,

On September 19 I won a pair of juvenile goldfish at a carnival. A month later they're in what I currently consider their final setup. But as someone who's never cared for any types of fish, I'd love any advice—unsolicited or not—on how to properly care for them and maximize their health and lifespan.

I won them to make my almost-4 year old daughter happy having no idea the amount of work that was coming my way. 😄

I'll share this as a timeline of events partnered with a series of questions. Kindly let me know what I should have done differently or what I should be doing differently moving forward.

I'm going to be asking A LOT of questions and sharing A LOT of pictures. Feel free to cherry pick things you know the answers to and ignore the things you don't, or feel free to answer every question in detail.

I'm doing this so I can be thorough and use this thread as a one-stop shop for all the information I'll need to take care of these little guys for the rest of their lives.

For starters. Here they are today:

Do they appear healthy? Is there anything in their appearance or behavior that would concern you?

https://reddit.com/link/1xavk2p/video/s49a3fbp0nwh1/player

On September 19 they were acquired in the following tiny tank:

They were in this tank for 3-4 days before I was able to acquire a 2.5 gallon tank. They were in the 2.5 gallon tank (pictured below) for about 2.5 weeks. So the 2 fish were in just 2.5 gallons or less for about 3 weeks. This excludes any time they spent in cramped quarters prior to my acquiring them. I have no idea what their conditions were prior to me winning them.

During their time in this 2.5 gallon tank, I was caring for them as follows:

1. Daily morning feedings with the flakes that came in a Ziplock with the fish.

2. Daily changes of 2/3s of the water.

3. Daily water conditioning.

4. Water temperatures maintained as consistent as possible.

After 3 weeks, they were transitioned to a 75 gallon tank I acquired on Facebook Marketplace. I cleaned it with water and white vinegar. I filled it with water temperature at about 64 degrees Fahrenheit. The water was conditioned as instructed. I changed the bottom from gravel to sand as I read they like to pick at the gravel and it could injure their gills.

Since this time, I've been doing the following. As this is the current state of the operation, I have the following questions for you.

1. I have about 4 inches of space at the top of the tank. This is to prevent them from jumping out before it doesn't have a lid. At their juvenile size, is this sufficient for now?

2. The tank apparently was a custom tank, so unfortunately there are no lids that are made for this tank. There's no center bar to balance plexiglass or Lexan and prevent sagging. At this point, I'm leaning towards simply getting three aluminum panels of 16x20 inches at 1/16th an inch thickness. That's lightweight, would cover the whole tank, and wouldn't sag. There's about 1.25 inches on the sides to support the panels (so 2.5 inches total). I read that's plenty.

Is this a terrible idea? I can't come up with anything better save for building a custom lid, something that I just don't have the time or acumen for at the moment.

3. Is a lid 100% necessary with goldfish long term? Do common/comet fish jump out if the water i cared for properly?

4. I'm currently giving them water changes every 5 days. I'm changing out about 60% of the water. I have the tiny filter from their 2.5 gallon tank still working here to circulate any beneficial bacteria that formed. I condition the water as instructed by the bottle. I also have a new filter (will get to that in a moment). I do my best to match the temperature to the old water.

After a month, I would love it if I could do more infrequent changes. What would you recommend?

5. Is this a suitable set up for the rest of their lives? Is 75 gallons enough for 2 adult goldfish?

6. How big do you expect them to grow providing I do give them proper care?

7. Can I add additional fish that create less waste than goldfish do, or is this the maximum amount of fish I can have for gold fish to thrive?

8. I bought them the following tank stand. It claims it supports 1000 pounds. All in, I assume my tank, water, stuff on the shelves, the sand, and all the accessories probably lands me at about 900 pounds. Maybe a little less. So my question is, if a tank stand on Amazon is claiming 1000 pounds, is that reliable? It seems fine today, but I need it to be fine 10 years from now. Here's what I bought:

8. You'll notice the lights atop the tank. They are submersible LED lights (pictured below). I currently have them dragged cross the top of the water with old phone chargers (unplugged of course!) It's just functioning as "string". I can't imagine this isn't safe but do you have any reservations providing the cords are confidently secured?

9. Here is their water filter. Is it sufficient, and how often do I need to clean it/change it?

10, Here's their food. I'm currently giving them 6 pellets each in the morning, and then again in the evening. Two Part Question: Is that enough/too much? Also the one with the black fin tips is kind of a bully and really seems to eat almost all of it no matter what I do. The purely gold one tends to only get the scraps on the ground.

To be honest, I'm not even sure if it's a problem. The purely-gold one will often swim directly by a falling pellet and ignore it. She seems to prefer foraging it from the sand. The other one waits at the top of the water for every possible pellet when she sees me coming.

11. Last but not least, I use the following strips to test for all the things you need to test for. Ammonia, Nitrates, etc. Right now I'm doing it every 2-3 days. Is this sufficient. Long term, do I even need to bother if I'm regularly changing the water?

Also, is the levels it reports on (especially for Ammonia) granular enough. If I go from 0.0 to 0.5, did I need to know if it was at 0.2? Or is what you see below a granular enough indication for me?

THANK YOU!!! Please feel free to comment on any of my questions or provide any additional insights!

Waiting to see how they do with the current plants, if they don’t eat them, I’ll add more. Has a 50gallon and a 10 gallon sponge filter hiding behind the plants

225g community tank with 3 goldfish, 3 golden dojo loaches, 10+ variatus platy, & a few hitchhiker snails.

Adding a pic in the comments of one of their previous tanks(2 years ago today). The goldfish moved between a 29 tall, 29 long, 40g, & 65g before finally settling in here a few months back.

If anyone has hardy plant/additional cohabitant suggestions I'm open to all ideas. Thanks for looking!

I'd like to keep 1-2 indoors. I have planted breeder to start with, but will upgrade as they grow.

I know some goldfish are more prone to diseases than others. I'm looking for a hardy breed. All tips are welcome!

Hi all. For the longest time i had a mopani arch in my tank with my moor, theres never been any issue with it until yesterday all of a sudden she decided she wanted to dig herself under it intensely looking for food and ended up with a gash on the gill and her side. I did take the wood out and treated the tank with some melafix. I just feel horrible and wonder if theres anything more I can do. (i did recently just rescue a ryukin and regrew its tail fins so ill be approaching it with the same things I just feel terrible)

Hi! I have 2 common goldfish and am trying to set up an outdoor plastic stock tank.

I got these fish from someone who won them at a fair and now am trying to be a good pet owner but also am balling on a BUDGET.

Found this 100 gallon tank

This 400 GPH water pump

And this metal mesh cover to protect from animals

I need to figure out the rest of the filter but am sort of lost and already these few items set me back like $350 … I’ll get more rocks for the bottom and have air stones and tank decor that can be transferred from their current setup. Eventually I think it would be cool to set up an aquaponics system but for now I just need the basics… please help! I’m not a fish person and am so confused, the fishies are healthy and happy now in their tank, but I want them to have a better set up and I’m worried they’re going to outgrow their current home soon because they are already so much bigger than when I got them.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated. I wanted this to be fun but have been a bit overwhelmed by the project as I don’t have a large outdoor space, budget, or experience here. Thank you!

I've had him about 2 months and I brought him in from the pond this week. I worry the parameters were bad out there, and that somehow caused this. I don't know if he's had this very long. I think the white spots are breeding marks but I have no clue about the red gill. He is full of energy and is not acting sick at all. Thank you!!

Anyone know what this is on the side of my goldfish? I just noticed it today and she didn’t have it before. I did recently swap out their tank and added some driftwood, but my driftwood is pretty smooth although it does have some height. I’m wondering if she could’ve injured a scale on the wood?

Shogun goldfish super beauty

Hi! I’m going to be setting up a goldfish aquarium here soon and I’m wondering if I should go with a 40 gallon or 60 gallon. I only want two fancies, I’m thinking Oranda.

I am looking at this fish on Zhao’s website and it says that he “lists forward”. I’m assuming this is referring to that his head tends to be lower than the rest of his body. Is this okay? I don’t mind if he is a little “different” but I don’t want this to be harmful to him in anyway. I’d rather know before I buy.

Please tell when what you guys think it is? I cant tell for sure. Ive never kept fish before him and no photos online are helping me identify. They almost look raised?

So I am at the edge of overstock, and yet no matter how much I tell them to knock it off, they had more babies. I could have, should have, would have left them to attrition but .....well to be honest I wanted to see what I got for color. So now I am sitting on 2 to 3 dozen babies (1 to 2 inches long) that need to be relocated before the above ground IBC tote can no longer house them due to freezing temps. I am willing to let some of the larger fish go as well (4 plus inches)......and no I went bigger with the pond last year, not due for enlargement until 2029.

This is 14 year-old Koji. He's very poorly and I don't know if there is still hope or if it's time to let him go. I'm very emotional about this so please be kind.

He's been like this for 2.5 days. On the day I started treatment, I removed the gravel substrate to prevent injury to the side he is laying on. The tank is a 200 litre tank and he's the only inhabitant. It has a Fluval 307 external filter.

I have completed a 50% water change and the parameters were great after that. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the test strips before starting the Swimbladder Treatment from NTLabs. This is why the tank water is such a neon yellow colour.

I handfed a couple of blanched peas and they have passed through. That was on Saturday (17th) and he has been fasting since. I've spotted him trying to move around a few times but he cannot get to the top of the tank and can't even remain upright for more than a second or so.

There are no vets in my area that will provide treatment for fish - we've been calling them all this morning. He's a very old boy and I understand it might be time, but there's a tiny part of me that's hoping for recovery. Does anyone have any advice? I can provide more photos of the tank if helpful.

I’ve had 2 oranda goldfish in a 35-40 gal (I forgot) for about a year now, I bought a 75 gal tank for them but it seemed too empty so I bought another oranda.

Things were fine at first and it seemed like they all got along (my original 2 goldfish are pretty chill) then all of a sudden 1 of my og fish started bullying the other og.

Anytime I would feed them, the bully fish would compete with her bestie for food, when there’s plenty and they have a good feeding schedule.

She would also be “chasing her butt” idk how else to describe it but she’s chasing her around the tank with her face in her butt 😭

I put the bully in jail for 3 hours, she acted fine then started bullying again, so the next day I put her in for another 3 hours.

I fear she needs to be incarcerated for an extended period of time. How long can I keep her in jail?

Here’s my theories:
- I’m actually not 100% sure the genders of the first 2 fish, I think they’re both girls. So maybe the new fish is a boy and messed up the hierarchy.
- I read something that goldfish bully another fish if they’re sick, but idk about this because this only started when I introduced the newest fish. I do have methylene blue coming in soon.
I’ll post a video when I get home

Is this tank big enough for 4 goldfish?

2 years ago at a state fair my mom randomly told me she won me and my sister 2 gold fishes when we got back home we had no idea what to do because we got home late and no stores were open to get the fishes an actual good place to live so we got an empty cheeseball container and filled it with water my sisters died but mine stayed alive we didn’t move him to an actual tank for a while because we thought he’d die and it’d be a waste of money but after 3 months we decided to finally get him a tank even with some decorations in it but when we put him in it he just swam to a blind spot and stayed there for a long while and I started to get scared he was gonna go into shock and die so I moved him back into the cheeseball container ever since then we moved and left the tank and the decorations behind but I feel sad seeing him in that small cheese ball container I tried to talk about it on TikTok but everyone said I was an animal abuser and I do have to admit I was wrong for waiting so long to the point where the goldfish got used to the cheeseball container to then give him a tank but I wanna make it right and find him a good tank or bowl so if anyone has any recommendations or knows any way I can move him from the container to a tank without causing him to die I’d love to hear it!

This is Bok Choy, the rescue fantail. She came into our lives with her two tankmates as a baby because we bought a tank off some guy on the internet and apparently the tank came with its inhabitants, who were originally a gift for a child and in a pretty sorry state.

It's been some months since then and she's almost doubled in size and usually very happy and active. We're expecting to upgrade her planted tank to a bigger one to suit their needs as soon as we can afford it. She's currently in a hospital tank because she seemed swollen and lethargic after a spike in nitrates and so far her mood seems to have improved quite a bit with water changes and fresh veggies, but the swelling still hasn't gone down.

We're a betta household and have no previous experience with goldfish. I'm finding it hard to gauge whether she's fat, pregnant or retaining fluid from the guides and pictures online because most fancy goldfish seem, to my untrained eye, just round.

This is her as of today, right after dinner. Based on what we've seen online and the looks of her vent, which we managed to inspect today in spite of her best efforts, we suspect she might be pregnant, but we would really appreciate a second opinion. Her tankmates are a male oranda and a telescope of indeterminate sex, so who knows what could come out of that.

So far neither her eyes nor her scales are bulging out, which we've seen happen before in bettas with advanced dropsy. Tomorrow she'll be getting a salt bath no matter what, and depending on the verdict we'll start her on medication. Thank you all in advance!