Starting out on coldwater fish ? please help.

[Tomo]

Hi

Can anyone tell me the best substrate to use for 2 small fancy goldfish sand or gravel? Is it just a personal choice or do the fish prefer one or the other?. Would it be ok to have 5 or 6 white cloud minnows With them as well

I have some bogwood that i am soaking at the moment nearly week trying to get it to sink and also to get rid of the brown tannis it gives off any quick ideas on how to stop it floating? and how long before I get clear water?.

My tank is 60lts with a couple of sydeco plastic plants which look really good also a few pepples with the bogwood I hope the set up would look good for my choice of cold water fish ,I Know its a lot of questions any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks. Tomo

 

[Gill]

Goldfish are not fusy about substrate, so use whichever you find more pleasing to the eye. WCMM go very well with goldfish as look great with them.
The Bogwood, simplest thing to do is boil it for a while to leech out the tannins and make it sink.

Great choice in plastic plants. Sydeco do a very nice looking range, and there was an article about them on PFK a while back.

 

[Tomo]

Thanks for your quick reply. I also saw the article on plastic plants-it was very good. Thanks for your advice. Tomo

 

[tomw]

Hi Tomo,

I've been keeping goldfish for a while now, and having tried out all of the usual aquarium gravels & grit substrates, I've found that broken slate makes the best substrate, as it is easiest to keep clean. (Goldfish make a lot of mess). Slate is 'fish safe' and is also cheap as chips. It is available in big sacks from any B&Q garden department:
http://reviews.diy.com/2191-en_gb/9273647/reviews.htm
Remember to wash & scrub the slate in the sink to remove any slate dust before you add it to the aquarium, otherwise the dust will make your water go a bit cloudy.

Larger individual slate 'slabs' are available at any good landscaping supplier.

The best thing about goldfish and slate is that the goldfish look amazing against the dark slate background. It really brings out their colouration nicely.

Get yourself a decent 'Syphon hoover' and hoover your tank floor once a week. This can be combined with a 20% water change at the same time. I am currently trying out an exeriment using a 'through the floor' filtration system on my aquarium to cut down on these cleaning chores. You can follow my progress here:
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=17348

Plastic plants are a good idea for goldfish (they will eat most other plants), although as part of my current experiment I will be trying out a few 'goldfish-proof' live plants to see if it is possible to run a nice planted tank with goldfish in it. Without any 'live' plants, you might want to consider a UV steriliser if you run into algae / cloudy water problems.

Whatever you do, buy a few sprigs of Elodia Densa, as your goldfish will really enjoy eating it! You should be able to get it at pretty much any pet shop / aquarium shop.
http://www.plantsalive.co.uk/Aquari...ants/Elodea-Densa-Egeria-Densa-/prod_497.html

If you want to add other livestock to your goldfish aquarium, try an algae-eating snail, like an 'Apple Snail' or similar:
http://www.applesnail.net/.
These guys will hoover up any algae for you, and keep your aquarium nice and clean. They are quite temperature tolerant, and will survive well in a cold-water aquarium. If you keep a snail however, make sure you soak / rinse off any plants you buy before you add them to the aquarium, as the pesticides found on the commercially grown plants will kill your snail. As an occasional treat, weigh down a lettuice leaf for the snail to feed on.

Good luck!

P.S. Well kept goldfish will grow very large, very quickly! Make plans for a larger aquarium in a year or two. My five goldfish started out as tiny minnows in a 25 litre tank, three years later my fish are all between 6" to 8" long, and I'm on a 240 litre tank.

 

[Tomo]

Thanks for your brilliant advice, tomw! I am already looking at larger tanks for the future.
Thanks again
Tomo