Xavier
07-01-2010, 03:25 PM
Hello, since this is my first post I'll give an explanation as to my experience level.
My parents had several tanks when I was growing up, but were terrible at it. I can't tell you how many fish they killed by not cycling the tank, letting infections and fungus spread, insufficient filtration, etc. Of course I didn't understand this at all as a kid. I read up on how to keep fish as an adult, every now and again, whenever I walked by a petstore, but the prices were out of my budget.
6 weeks ago my partner arrives home with 6 goldfish that her elementary school students bought for her. She says "we'll have to buy a goldfish bowl tomorrow" and I replied "No, we're going to need a lot more than a goldfish bowl... this is going to cost us hundreds..."
I suggested finding someone to give the fish to, or dropping them in the miniature lake near our place that has goldfish thriving in it, but she desperately wanted to keep them. Next day we went to the best petstore (reviews for good staff) I could find and bought a 32 gallon waterhome, with an eheim 2213, complete with gravel and chemicals etc. One fish died before I could get it set up.
I threw the fish in and hoped for the best, telling my partner that since the tanked was not cycled and these were most likely feeder fish, that they wouldn't survive. A couple of days later we lost another fish. The 4 that remained survived the cycling, which took 3-4 weeks and were doing well.
Last week I moved and managed to keep the aquarium cycled and decided to swap out my feeder goldfish for fancy goldfish. I went to the petstore and they were more than happy to take the fish (it's a tropical fish store and their showroom has a pond with goldfish). I bought 3 baby lionheads (although the store tag says they are ranchus, but that will be another post) and some live plants.
Now that the introductions are done, on to my question.
I've been reading about the best foods for goldfish, specifically egg-shaped goldfish, and the consensus seems to be pellets. Most stores in my area sell nutrafin and almost nothing else.
Are "nutrafin max" pellets any good? What brand of pellets would you recommend?
Here is the label info:
Crude Protein Min 47%
Crude Fat Min. 8%
Crude fibre max 4%
Moisture max 8%
ash max 8%
Phos min 0.85%
phos max 0.95%
Vitamin A 7000IU/lb
Vitamin C 350mg/lb
Vitamin E 75 IU/lb
Thanks in advance :)
My parents had several tanks when I was growing up, but were terrible at it. I can't tell you how many fish they killed by not cycling the tank, letting infections and fungus spread, insufficient filtration, etc. Of course I didn't understand this at all as a kid. I read up on how to keep fish as an adult, every now and again, whenever I walked by a petstore, but the prices were out of my budget.
6 weeks ago my partner arrives home with 6 goldfish that her elementary school students bought for her. She says "we'll have to buy a goldfish bowl tomorrow" and I replied "No, we're going to need a lot more than a goldfish bowl... this is going to cost us hundreds..."
I suggested finding someone to give the fish to, or dropping them in the miniature lake near our place that has goldfish thriving in it, but she desperately wanted to keep them. Next day we went to the best petstore (reviews for good staff) I could find and bought a 32 gallon waterhome, with an eheim 2213, complete with gravel and chemicals etc. One fish died before I could get it set up.
I threw the fish in and hoped for the best, telling my partner that since the tanked was not cycled and these were most likely feeder fish, that they wouldn't survive. A couple of days later we lost another fish. The 4 that remained survived the cycling, which took 3-4 weeks and were doing well.
Last week I moved and managed to keep the aquarium cycled and decided to swap out my feeder goldfish for fancy goldfish. I went to the petstore and they were more than happy to take the fish (it's a tropical fish store and their showroom has a pond with goldfish). I bought 3 baby lionheads (although the store tag says they are ranchus, but that will be another post) and some live plants.
Now that the introductions are done, on to my question.
I've been reading about the best foods for goldfish, specifically egg-shaped goldfish, and the consensus seems to be pellets. Most stores in my area sell nutrafin and almost nothing else.
Are "nutrafin max" pellets any good? What brand of pellets would you recommend?
Here is the label info:
Crude Protein Min 47%
Crude Fat Min. 8%
Crude fibre max 4%
Moisture max 8%
ash max 8%
Phos min 0.85%
phos max 0.95%
Vitamin A 7000IU/lb
Vitamin C 350mg/lb
Vitamin E 75 IU/lb
Thanks in advance :)