goldfish company

**MelonMan** · 02-02-2008, 01:31 AM

do goldfish enjoy the company of other goldfish or can i keep just one goldfish in a tank by itself?

**Kaga's Kritters** · 02-02-2008, 01:41 AM

goldfish are social animals and need to have companions...just make sure to not overstock the tank.

**shalafi04** · 02-02-2008, 02:10 AM

my goldfish gets along with everyone. from the pleco to the tetra, to the other goldfish. they love friends

**Rue** · 02-02-2008, 02:49 AM

Shouldn't have goldfish in with tropicals though...

...goldfish should really only go with other goldfish, although I do have cold-water loaches (Dojo/Weather locach) in with mine...but both species are from the same biotope originally...so it works...

White Cloud Mountain Minnows would also work...until the goldfish got large enough to eat them...

**jbeining75** · 02-02-2008, 03:14 AM

Keep goldfish with others of like size, I'd keep tetras in a different tank though....

**shalafi04** · 02-02-2008, 03:18 AM

thats interesting. i have never had any problems between my school of tetra, rasbora and my two enormous goldfish

**Rue** · 02-02-2008, 03:32 AM

Then you've been lucky.

The main issue is the water temp. Goldies are cold water. Tropicals are warm water.

While they can overlap...it's not ideal to keep goldfish warm or tropicals cool...so at the temp. that both can exist, neither is happy.

**MelonMan** · 02-02-2008, 05:29 AM

i wasn't asking whether they could go into a tank with tropicals, i meant could a fantail goldfish be in a 10 gal tank by itself with no other fish of the same species or any other species and still be happy?

**cocoa_pleco** · 02-02-2008, 05:44 AM

10g is really the very bare minimum for a single goldfish, usually its 20g for the first goldfish and 10g thereafter, but in a 10g if you have heavy filtration and 50% weekly WC its possible.

**Fishguy2727** · 02-02-2008, 12:47 PM

I am not sure whether there is any harm to a goldfish being in warmer water than they have been kept in historically. The issue that needs to be kept in mind is the rise in metabolic rate. This results in: 1-higher need for oxygen (they should have an air pump on the tank anyways), 2-more filtration (they need a lot anyways), and 3-more water changes (they definitely need a lot of that too). The water change schedule minimum is based on nitrate concentration, which needs to be no more than 20ppm. So although it is not really recommended, if they are already together and there are no issues then I would not worry about it.

As far as minimum tank size goes, the best guide I have seen is a minimum of a 20 gallon for one, and an additional 10 gallons for every additional goldfish. The other part is that they are schooling. So they are ideally in groups of at least 6. This puts a minimum sized school in a 65-75.