Best Tank for Fancy Goldfish?

[EVoyager31]

I rescued what was advertised as a fantail goldfish (honestly several of the fancy goldfish look very similar to me) from petco (shocked at how healthy he is) awhile back and he has grown so much! I’m ready to upgrade him from his 20 gallon temp tank into his forever home but unsure whats best. He is roughly 3-4.5 inches from tip to tail.

I know bigger is better, but I was thinking a 40-50 gallon would be sufficient for just him and some snails. Question is: 40 breeder? 40 tall? Thinner width wise vs height? 55? 
 

Depending what I get, was considering getting him 1 other goldfish friend. Future tank will be sparsely decorated to give lots of swimming space!

Thoughts?

[BETTA999]

yes watch this video of cory and the goldfish tank size paradox\ hey the gold fish you have evan looks like the one in the thumb nail

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by bettta999

[Anton]

Everything Cory says is good.

I on the other hand and this requires absolute dedication and dicipline used the ancient Chinese way of of keeping these fish. This entails water, a large wide top view bowl, shading, fish and a whole lot of work. Honestly the work is actualy not too much. I bred and kept two very nice lines of pearlscale and celestials in this manner. This was all indoors, I had decorative huge wide pots everywhere.  What i learnt from doing this enables me to do the same with loads of other fish like Platies, Rosy barbs, guppies etc.

Treat them like giant rice-fish and you will succeed. My stud males I kept alone each in their own half barrel size pots. Never more than three or so fish per pot otherwise. Only medication I ever had was salt.

This might sound like black magic these days but It's all about recycling water.

Every day I would lift each fish out of their home in a bowl appropriate for their size set it aside, they hardly knew they had been air-lifted. Then swirl the water around in the big round pots like a whirlpool. This causes all the fecal matter and tiny particles to gravitate into a neat little pile in the middle of each pot. You swirl strongly and then let it come to almost a complete stop on it's own, but not quite. If it completely stops swirling the little pile of debri explodes and spreads. So you have to vacuum the minute it's all assembled. Swirl clock wise or counter clock wise depending on which hemsiphere you  are in the world. This little pile I vacuumed out into a bucket.  You do the same in the bucket, all the matter settles in the bucket which takes a few muninutes or so then I pour that same water back into the fish pot just discarding the very bottom full of poo in the bucket. Gently place the fish back in the water and done for the day.

Routine wise this is very simple. Air-lift all the fish out around the house set the swirls in motion, go back to number one and start vacuuming.  place the fish back in, then go back to number one when all the rest are done and top up with the same water you took out for each.

Mature water is gold, full of the right bacteria so never throw it away in water changes.  

I never used plants, gravel nothing, the only plants I used were edible like duck weed species (as food) the shade covers were to stop the water getting too green which prevents a good view of the fish and gives the fish a place of safety. Usualy about half covered with bamboo mats, sunlight from windows or outdoors. A lovely soft velvit green carpet forms on the insides of the pots eventualy. I fed live food, pellets and duck weeds, the tiny crunchy pea shaped ones are the best. The pellets produce a nice intact poo which is easier for daily vaccuuming. 

This is the low tech alternative, the romantic version perhapse, predating electricity. Doing it this way in fact achieves everything Cory achieves ultimately, ticks all his boxes except any heavy water changes which are very rare. When starting a new tub I take a little old water from each mature tub. Thats about the only time I top up about a quarter all round. The rest of the new tub I fill with plain old tap water that I let  sit a day or so to let the chlorine evaporate.  Also using this to do small top ups when needed rather than water changes. 

Bright, happy, sparkling active goldfish.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Anton

[Colu]

Goldfish can up to 12 in I think long term a 75 gallon would be better I 

[EVoyager31]

On 1/30/2022 at 9:12 PM, Colu said:

Goldfish can up to 12 in I think long term a 75 gallon would be better I 

For comets and koi sure, but for a faintail/ similar species of fancies a perfect specimen would only get up to about 8, as far as I am aware. 

On 1/30/2022 at 8:32 PM, Anton said:

Everything Cory says is good.

I on the other hand and this requires absolute dedication and dicipline used the ancient Chinese way of of keeping these fish. This entails water, a large wide top view bowl, shading, fish and a whole lot of work. Honestly the work is actualy not too much. I bred and kept two very nice lines of pearlscale and celestials in this manner. This was all indoors, I had decorative huge wide pots everywhere.  What i learnt from doing this enables me to do the same with loads of other fish like Platies, Rosy barbs, guppies etc.

Treat them like giant rice-fish and you will succeed. My stud males I kept alone each in their own half barrel size pots. Never more than three or so fish per pot otherwise. Only medication I ever had was salt.

This might sound like black magic these days but It's all about recycling water.

Every day I would lift each fish out of their home in a bowl appropriate for their size set it aside, they hardly knew they had been air-lifted. Then swirl the water around in the big round pots like a whirlpool. This causes all the fecal matter and tiny particles to gravitate into a neat little pile in the middle of each pot. You swirl strongly and then let it come to almost a complete stop on it's own, but not quite. If it completely stops swirling the little pile of debri exploades and spreads. So you have to vacumm the minute it's all assembled. Swirl clock wise or counter clock wise depending on which hemsiphere you  are in the world. This little pile I vacummed out into a bucket, allowing all the matter to settle in the bucket which takes half an hour or so then I pour that same water back into the fish pot just discarding the very bottom full of poo in the bucket. Gently place the fish back in the water and done for the day.

Routine wise this is very simple. Air-lift all the fish out around the house set the swirls in motion, go back to number one and start vacuuming.  place the fish back in, then go back to number one when all the rest are done and top up with the same water you took out for each.

Mature water is gold, full of the right bacteria so never throw it away in water changes.  

I never used plants, gravel nothing, the only plants I used were edible like duck weed species (as food) the shade covers were to stop the water getting too green which prevents a good view of the fish and gives the fish a place of safety. Usualy about half covered with bamboo mats, sunlight from windows or outdoors. A lovely soft  velvit green carpet forms on the insides of the pots. I fed live food, pellets and duck weeds. The pellets produced a nice intact poo which is easier for vaccuuming. 

This is the low tech alternative, the romantic version. Which in fact achieves everything Cory achieves ultimately and ticks all his boxes.

Labour of love.

Interesting! I've certainly heard of folks keeping goldies in ponds, but I will look into this option. I don't currently have the space for something like that, but will do my best to keep them happy and healthy--if not in the traditional way. Thanks for the info!

[GardenStateGoldfish]

@Anton off topic but I can tell you like goldfish as much as me, I’d love to have a chat with you some day in pms if your interested. 
 

but to OP, I’d say it really depends on the type of goldfish your keeping, they are like dogs, German shepherds and chihuahuas have different care requirements, so do common goldfish and ranchus, however the best tank I could recommend is either the 40breeder or 75 gallon tank due to the 18 inch depth, goldfish would like a large shallow square tank more then a long thin rectangle, but if your limited to space, the 29g tank is a good starting point. Also I’d throw out all those gallon per fish rules, I agree with Anton on the aged water, I breed goldfish and I find that the water they create is super amazing for plants which in turn help the goldfish, they breed like crazy for me and I raise up tons of healthy fry. You can also look up one of my ryukin in the comeback kid category competition on these forums. 

[WhitecloudDynasty]

A 40breeder would be perfect, just keep up with your water change. 

[Anton]

On 1/31/2022 at 11:47 AM, GardenStateGoldfish said:

@Anton off topic but I can tell you like goldfish as much as me, I’d love to have a chat with you some day in pms if your interested.........
 

I don't do much golfish these days. I still have hundreds and hundreds of em in a very big pond, though. They breed each year and produce tons of fry. These are the ancestors of my Jikin , Bristol and London Shubunkins which I bred here in a more controlled manner before. I used to set out the odd breeding Jikin in the pond to improve red colouration as they have a very nice red and this produces very nice common goldfish, or rather beutifull commons.  Dark red and white, lovely shape, body depth and not snouty like more common goldfish. jikin can get rather large kept in big ponds, as big as a common in fact, nothing like the little ones in Japan.  I also added some London Shubunkins for calico etc this is still the full extent of my involvment besides feeding.  If i see a good fish I buy it and release with improvement in mind. They're super dark red selfs or red and white, big as trout with a line of calio running through them. I even put in a short tailed Tamasaba female, she could fit in my two cupped hands, she had that lovely dark red net pattern, each scale red with white inbetween. This threw up some very nice stocky commons last year, still wating for the net pattern, though. Might be this Spring not sure about the gentics of this. 

Before I bred pearls, the classic old old Shanghai calico butterfly ones which i only see very rarely these days, very rarely. But think they're still available mainland China (see pic) some appear to be getting to the USA. This one is excellent but should have vibrant violet blue, but really excellent fish, delicate, lovely body wise of the type I bred...perfect tail......I hope they're still around they're absolutely charming goldfish and make stunning top view pot fish, (lovely kingfisher blue should be in there to make this one 100%)  flirty, very hardy endearing fish, normal pointed little mouse heads, very active.

And I bred celestials, chocolate (its a sort of reddish brown), chococlate and white and a very nice metalic red and white line .  I loved my celestials. I went for lovely cobby short tails and deep bodies. They weren't in the slightest bit handicapped because of the eye position, seemed to have perfect vision, also very active busy free swiming fish. 

Thats my goldfish breeding history........this fish makes me want to go on the pearscale journey again.....not enough time in a single life to breed all the fish you want to or even again hey! I lost this line living  in the Netherlands after countless trips to China finding breeding material, aieeeeee yah!!!! Brings back memories and a half.

 

 

 

[Anton]

Aiyeeeee yah again ....this little fish is text book body shape. its just such a lovely flash of my past, she looks just like my very first pearscale. The Malaysian mostly red and white compressed ones with wide shoulders and tiny tails you find mostly today are not nice, nor the hooded ones. This is a balanced fish, everything in the right place! I just know it wiggles perfectly, swimming style and ability is so important.

Thats the end of Hi-jacking this thread already. Thats to say i forgot i also bred Nankins, another fantastic long lived healthy golfish. I went to a few Nakin shows in Japan and was completely hooked. The metalic sheen and deep red on those top view fish is utterly irressistable. ......top view ryukin are aslo hot these days i must say.....

I just must not get into goldfish again LOL. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Anton