Your very first fish

Hasn`t it been warm this past month? Just remember that when water warms up less oxygen is available, so don’t forget to oxygenate that tank or aquarium water.

In our previous article we discussed basic fish tank and pond set up. In this article we will start with the very first fish most people buy, and that’s normally a goldfish.

Goldfish are an amazing starter fish for people who want to start keeping an aquarium. Here are some tips to make it easy.

Types of Goldfish

• This can be divided into two basic types
• The ordinary single tail variety-comets, shubunkins
• The fancy veil tail variety-black moor, oranda, ranchu, lionheads

Water Quality

• Goldfish prefer moderately hard water PH 7.0-7.0
• Preferably filtered water with regular water changes.

Food

• Goldfish like a diet containing a balance of vegetable and prepared food. Long term use of flake food can lead to constipation and swim bladder disease especially amongst the more fancier varieties like organdies etc. Cooked peas or even real plants especially floating types like elodea and duckweed help to relieve the problem. Adding Epsom salts to the water at a concentration of 1.5 tablespoons per 50l, this will act as a laxative and help loosen the gut, once the fish has recovered feed in small amounts.
• Just remember to change water approx 20-30% every two weeks. Fish literally are swimming in their own loo, you need to clean it.
• Stodels are always running specials on fish, food and tanks so don’t forget to look out for these in the press.
• And finally I had a client visiting me saying that his friend promised him his entire Koi collection if he could explain the Nitrogen cycle. I hope this is not too late.
• Waste produced by fish, uneaten food ---- Ammonia ----converted by bacteria in filter ---- Nitrite ----converted by bacteria to form Nitrate ---- this is removed by plants and water changes.
• Memorise this and tell him you want the filters as well.

Happy fish keeping to all our Stodels clients.