Overfeeding accident

[jbirdag96]

This past weekend my oldest daughter decided to feed her fish without mommy or daddy there. We had family over for her b-day party and I think she just got over-excited while showing her cousin the fish. She took the small container of flake food and dumped the entire thing into the tank. I relocated, temporarily, the 2 small fantail GF's into our 40 gal tank. I'm faced with a tough decision as a result of this. I don't want to keep the fantails as I know they will very quickly outgrow the small tank and are massive waste producers in comparison with the other fish we have. I don't want to keep them in the 40 gallon as they don't go with the community we are building due to the reasons mentioned above. We have 6 Cherry Barbs, 3 Guppies, 1 Zebra Danio, and 1 small common pleco in there now. When the time is appropriate I'm wanting to add more zebras...4 or 5 more....then stop adding alltogether. I do know the pleco will need to be in a much larger tank eventually and we are exploring the possibility of either getting another larger tank or finding a LFS that'll let us trade this one in towards the purchase of a larger tank. In regards to the GF's I don't know of a LFS that'll accept them as a trade. The petsmart where we purchased them won't as its past the 2week period.

[xoolooxunny]

does she know its against the rules to feed without you there? i would hate to find out that your 40 gallon had that happen to it!

[jbirdag96]

Nah...we've only fed her fish while I was there. I never thought she'd do that, but lesson learned :goldfish:

Our 40gal is too high for her to reach.

[xoolooxunny]

<sigh of relief>

[gm72]

I would just add another tank, but I'm an addict and just CAN'T STOP! Already planning the 180 gallon!

[kimmers318]

Unless you wish to start another tank for the goldfish you are stuck with a decision to get rid of them or euthanize them, neither answer is a good one in my opinion. I have several fish who I purchased and didn't know enough about and found out the hard way what they needed, thus another tank was born. Although the goldfish would be happy in your 40 gal alone, they won't thrive if you try to keep them in there with tropicals who need warmer water. Plus, I have known goldfish to eat fish that were small enough for them to fit into their mouths.
How small is your daughters tank?

[cocoa_pleco]

This may work, but like kimmers said is your daughters a 10g? Ive seen some stores sell 10g canister filters, and if you do weekly water changes, have a canister filter, and clean the gravel well you may be able to keep a small goldfish in a 10g

[jbirdag96]

Well, after emptying it and cleaning it out I've found that it may be closer to 5 gallons than 10. Don't know for sure as I was using a cleaned out milk jug to empty the tank so I could carry the tank to our sink. The tank is custom built plexiglass. We have a 10gal tank and when comparing the two I'd swear our daughter's is close to 10gal. Anyhow, the gf's are in our 40gal for the moment. They seem to be doing fine, but I know they aren't going to be in there for much longer. Actually, maybe 2 days longer at most. I may get another tank, but have to check what supplies we have already as we don't have the money to buy and outfit a new tank. As they seem to be healthy, I really don't want to give them a burial in "flushing sea". I'll try to exchange them at a lfs even if they don't give much for them.

We've looked at guppies and found some really nice ones. There's 2 in our 40gal that are beautiful. When our daughter's tank is ready to go again..that's the route we are going. We'll get a couple of 'em for her tank as I've heard that's a MUCH better fit than the gf's.

[Rue]

Goldfish are my all time favourites...so I can't be of much help...my two are in a temporay 10g tank in the basement, where the water stays at a nice 68F for them...

...I'm just waiting for garage sale season to start...I'll be looking for a used 33-75g tank to put them into...

I tried to keep them upstairs, but we don't have AC...and I don't want AC...so it just gets too hot for too long...they can't survive the summer upstairs...

...the tropical community tank handles the warmer water just fine...