Hello Everyone!
This is my first post to this forum; I was formerly a member of the Facebook Group "Aquarium Group Support". I've been keeping freshwater fish since 2018, and have at one point had 5 separate tanks! I usually keep single bettas with community tanks, and have kept pea puffers at one point. I've been having bad luck with my last couple bettas because I wasn't buying them from a breeder, and decided to take a break from buying any more. I currently have a Giant male I got from a breeder and he's great. So when my last one died, I refreshed my memory on on the individual species in my 2 community tanks and was happy to find they could all co-exist, so I combined them and freed up my 20 gallon long. I decided to buy my first fantail goldfish to put in it! I just had a few questions on goldfish specifically so I can give it the best care it can have:
Do I really have to feed it everyday? I've always fed my tropical fish every other day to cut back on waste, but online sources for goldfish were telling me once or twice a day. Is that what's best for it?
How do you sex goldfish? I'd really like to know what it is 🙂
Is a consistent temperature good? I know they don't need a heater, but I left the existing heater in the tank and set it to 68 degrees. For some reason leaving in the heater made me feel better, since I've always kept tanks at a consistent temperature.
Can I house two fantail goldfish in a 33 gallon long (dimensions of a 55 gallon tank cut in half horizontally) tank? This tank is my other community tank, but I don't plan to replace any of the community fish that die off at this point. Eventually I would like to downsize to only 1 tank, and I know goldfish can live a long time, so I was wondering if it could be moved into the 33 gallon with a tankmate eventually?
Could I put a mystery snail with it in the 20 gallon currently? Online sources were very clear about no tankmates in a 20 gallon because of goldfish waste output, but I was wondering about the opinions from this forum.
Is it going to eat the gravel? I've seen him put it in his mouth and spit it back out, and do the same thing with pest snails. Do I need to be concerned?
Thank you all in advance for your time and opinions!! I look forward to participating in the forum 🙂
