The Famous Gold Fish

Hello Friends,

As you know, from reading my riveting about me section...

I have four goldfish.

haha

Well, since November 29th, several of you have asked about them and what their names are. I have mentioned that they do not have names! yet!

In fact when I first mentioned them I only had two goldfish, so within this time I bought 3 more, and sadly, I lost one of them as I will detail further in the story. I updated my profile to indicate I had four golden majestic creatures.

So the two smallest, I've had since early December 2020. They are Fantail goldfish I believe. Quite bulbous and frantic to see them swimming around!

The next largest (second biggest), I have had since I got this 55 gallon tank. Which would have been early winter 2019. So he is roughly 14 months plus or minus. I am not sure how old they are by the time I buy them, but this one is a Comet goldfish, and he was as small as they come when I got him. I purchased him as a canary, if you will, to test out the new (used) tank to ensure there were not any dangerous germs or mould in it before putting my larger fish in.

At the time I got the 55 gallon tank I had 3 'big' goldfish, also Comets, all the same age as my largest one. Except they were all quite smaller than this one is now. Additionally I had a plecko with those three.

For setting up the 55 gallon tank, I initially chose to put it in my garage to ensure that it was water tight, and would not bust open in my house to great clamour and distress. The garage has a concrete floor with drainage, should that have been required.

Unfortunately, having the tank in the garage was not the best for temperature regulation of the tank during cold Canadian winter. I had a tank heater, but in the winter it was constantly running and in due time it burned out. The plecko was stressed, and never liked the big tank, always hiding behind stuff. I eventually lost him. We had tried to give him away a few times but that didn't happen.

This was quite a busy time for me as well, with a newborn baby. I must confess the tank did not get the priority it needed. Also I was new to running a tank, and did not set up the glass covers on top and one of the three big ones had jumped out. I found him on the floor as I came home from work one day. My amateur mistake had cost me another fish!

I eventually moved the tank to the bathroom, where it is now. But let us jump back in time again.

The three big goldfish were originally given to my wife in a 5 gallon tank! This would have been before October 2018 when we received them. This makes the big ones age unknown, but at least 2.5 years old, maybe up to 3 years. They were at this time small, but soon started to outgrow the 5 gallon tank! The previous owner originally bought them for a turtle to eat (???), for some reason, but the turtle never ate them... they grew up in a mud puddle in the bottom of the 5 gallon tank which was not full of water while being set up as a turtle's paradise.

We had hoped to give them a better life in setting up the 55 gallon tank. The 55 gallon tank I paid $100 for, used. It came with all the stuff, but the top light fixture didn't work. I still don't have a proper aquarium light, but just a clamp-on desk lamp for now.

So, I mentioned the death of the first of the three original fish. Now for the sad tale of the death of the second of the three. This was a few months ago, during an extremely busy and stressful time of life. I wont go into that in too much detail, but to say that the tank was again not maintained properly. With the fish growing larger the filtration was inadequate, skipping some water changes and cleanings due to other priorities and this fish got sick. It happened quickly, but a rushed water change and tank cleaning couldn't save him. I researched that there are some types of medicine you can get to help, but without having it on hand, the pet store being closed due to that thing... anyway. We lost him before amazon could deliver. It bothered me, because it was hard evidence that I was overloaded and not keeping up, and the consequences became real. I'm not talking about lazy neglect, but day after day not enough hours to prioritize fish over family and kids and work and overtime and house repairs and all kinds of things that just legitimately came first. Too much!

Ok, so this blog is turning into a story of fish deaths, hmm...

Sorry about that. So as I mentioned at the start of December that I had two goldfish, I bought 3 more, and quickly lost one. This one I lost was a small calico goldfish, interesting pattern on the scales, super go-getter attitude. Not scared of the bigger fish, out and about getting food. I really liked this fish.

So how did this one go? Well I was trying to make some honest to goodness improvements in the tank and upgrading the filter setup after my previous loss. And in doing so I modified one of the filters with a custom polyester batting material, which ended up increasing the flow rate of water compared to the previous filter and the fish got sucked up against the filter intake and became stuck. I noticed the fish trapped there after coming home from work and it was too late. Lesson learned, but major sad face :(

So there we are. I have plans to do this up as a planted tank in the future. I would also like to build a better filter, and maybe get a larger... 90 gallon ++ tank setup by the dining table.

The big one is getting so big that maybe a bit more space would be helpful. This one is also getting old, and it shows a bit. I am not sure how long they will live, but I would like them all to stay healthy and grow as big as possible. Right now he is sick, you'll notice a red in one of his fins. I'm keeping an eye on it and I think he'll recover fine.

I do plan to buy some more calico goldfish. I would also like to add some snails and shrimp to the bottom. Unfortunately selection has been limited at my local fish store.

The second biggest has been nudging the biggest oldest fish around the tank. I assume to assert dominance. As you can see the second biggest fish looks quite radiant and healthy, strong and probably reached the age where challenging the old fish became possible.

So these are basically my magikarp :)

I also love Koi, and have spent some time researching Koi, but they appear to be too expensive for me to get involved in. So I'll just settle for trying to grow the goldfish as big as I can.

Any name suggestions? Please let me know below!

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