GENERAL CARE OF GOLDFISH
(to return to previous page, click the right button on the mouse and click on back)CITY WATER Cities use a lot of different chemicals to treat city water.
1. Chlorine or chlorine and ammonia (chloramines) are added to kill bacteria. Advanced city treatments are using ozone which leaves no residue in the water
2. Potassium permanganate is used to precipitate organic solids (what makes water taste horrible). The treated water is then run thru anthracite, a very hard coal to remove the precipitated organic solids and the PP. Anthracite is ground into fine grains and can be used in tanks to clean up water as well.
3. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) can make the pH of water close to 9.0. It is used when there are a lot of old lead pipes in use in the city. High pH prevents lead leaching into the water, also prevents the leaching of copper.
4. Phosphates are also used to prevent lead leaching into water. Suspect phosphates if you have problems with green water and algae.
5. There can be dissolved gases in the water. If the pH starts low and climbs after sitting overnight, suspect carbon dioxide is degassing. If the temperature is adjusted to be the same as the tank, but bubbles appear on the tank anyway, suspect that there is dissolved gases and they are under pressure. Cold water holds more gas than warm, so when cold water sits at room temp, the gas comes out as the water heats up. This can happen when water comes out of a deep well, the water is under pressure and holds more gas. Fish can get gas bubble disease from this kind of water.WATER FILTERS
People do use water filters to remove chlorine and chloramine. I would feel safer running the water into an aging vat (a 40 gallon tall and checking it before pumping it into the tanks with the fish. Get filters with cheap replacement cartridges rather than just the cheapest filter.WELL WATER
Well water can be better than city water, but....
If the water is softened, calcium and buffer have to be added back into the water or the pH will jump around. Not good for GF.
Run hot water into a glass. If you see air bubbles, the water is saturated with gases, most likely nitrogen. The deeper the well, the more saturated with nitrogen. Not good for GF.
Does the well water have a lot of iron? Iron is precipitated by oxygen. Iron oxides irritate the gills. Not good for GF. Iron can be precipitated out of the water with PP. or with vigorous aeration with oxygen.
Do you drink the well water? Does it smell like rotten eggs sometimes? This is hydrogen sulfide. Not good for GF.
Get a big waste basket on wheels or a rubbermaid storage tub at Kmart, Walmart, etc. These hold from 20-45 gallons. Once a week, move it near the tanks, fill with well water, add dolomitic lime or crushed coral, use an airstone to age the water overnight. The water will then be the same temp as the tank unless you use a heater. Get a cheap powerhead called a maxi-1000 from the "mail order pet supply" store online and get hosing to fit it. Drop the pump into the water and clamp the hose end in the tank. Drain out and refill from the tub. Check nitrates to determine how often to change water. It is best to change 20-30% at a time.SOFTENED, DISTILLED OR REVERSE OSMOSIS WATER
Distilled and RO water is stripped of minerals. There is no buffer or "hardness" in soft water. This means that the pH of the water can swing wildly when nearly anything that isn't a neutral pH is added, or when organic acids, CO2, ammonia or nitrites build up.
For this reason, it is highly recommended that anyone who uses soft water must add a calcium source to the water to bring the hardness up to at least 20 ppm. Adding organic dolomitic lime or crushed coral will provide the hardness. I use softened water and put the organic lime in both my aging vats and in the tanks so it will release slowly in response to pH conditions.
There are a great many medications and treatments that specifically state they are toxic in low pH and low or high "hardness" waters. Medications like this must be avoided, and those that don't state what the contents are must be avoided as well.
Water is softened by exchanging sodium (Na+) ions for other ions like calcium (Ca2+). This puts a lot of sodium ions into the water. Using a salinity meter (the "saltiness" of NaCl is entirely due to the chloride ion (Cl)) the sodium concentration of one person's soft water was determined to be 1.4%. This person had sick and dying fish. This problem was resolved by bypassing her softener.
So it is possible that adding NaCl to a tank that already has high sodium ion concentration might push the sodium into the toxic range for fish.
High salt does cause shredding of fins.RANCHU
Should have a nice rounded back with no bumps and should have an overall "chubbiness". The second thing to look for is good swimming ability, they should swim easily and fast without too much side to side movement. They should have a cute face (or ugly if that is your preference) Make sure they swim perfectly aligned and aren't tilted to one side or the other (make sure the light is from overhead) Look for shininess of the scales, color is totally ones preference. When they do come up to the surface for food, they will wiggle like little dogs.QUARANTINE FOR NEW FISH IN TANKS
Stage 1 = new fish goes through dips etc. and is allowed to recover from stress
.. diseases are treated, fish gets used to pH, water conditions, food, etc.
(scrapes done to establish what the fish has and treated accordingly) 0-2 weeks
.. these dips include 30 seconds to 2 minutes ('til fish comes up on side) in 3% salt
.. potassium permanganate dip..Stage 2 = new fish gets established biofilter from main tank, introduction
to new diseases under optimal conditions of no "other" stresses (like new tank inhabitants/territorial disputes) meds are used if necessary, (scrapes done to establish what the fish has and treated accordingly) (2-4 weeks)Stage 3 = new fish is introduced into main tank ... old tank is kept cycled with a little food just in case .. after a couple weeks, isolation tank can be broken down and sterilized
QUARANTINE NEW FISH FOR PONDS
It is important to know:
1. where the fish came from.
2. how long it has been at the place it has been at
3. whether it was held in a pond or in a raceway
4. what medications the fish have been treated with recentlyIsraeli koi and shubunks, etc. are not exposed to salt. So salt has to be used very carefully. Chinese, Japanese and American fish are used to salt, but ask if they use salt in their holding facility. Israeli koi and fish are raised in almost sterile conditions and often have little immunity to various "crud".
Most koi etc. are raised in raceways (water is continuously flowing in and out of the tank) and if the fish have been at the store less than a month, they are going to have more trouble adjusting to pond life than a fish that has already been in a pond for a month. Ask. If "they don't know" assume the worst.
A 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank is ideal for a quarantine tank. I drop a maxi 1000 power head into a 1 gallon bucket filled with pea gravel for a filter. these pumps got a "nose" for a hose. I also put in 2 big air stones and something that floats for them to hide under. Most important is bird netting over the top held down with a tight piece of fabric elastic that is slipped over the netting, not wound through it. When I want to get into the tank, I pull up a piece of the netting. Easy to tuck back in.
The tank is filled and ready for the fish. Best is to have some idea of the temp of the water the fish are in already rather than bringing the bag water temp up or down too fast.
I float the bag and prepare a 3% salt dip for the fish. The fish are first examine up close for any scrapes, lose scales, etc. I do a scrape to look for parasites. Then they are dipped and then put right into the tank. I go examine the scrape at this point. 0.1% Salt is added for those fish that come from salted water. I use Quick Cure for 3 days to knock down most parasites. Any dings are treated with Panalog (or neosporin). I feed new fish romet B for at least 2 weeks.
Stage 1 = stress and parasites are the primary problem 2 weeks
Stage 2 = bacterial problems may show up. I introduce pond water into the tank
If anything shows up, fish goes back to start of quarantine until they have been disease free for 1 month. At the end of the month, I bring the temp of the tank up to 86oF for 48 hours and then slowly lower the temp over another 48 hours. This takes care of heat activated and heat killed aeromonas.
FOOD GENERAL CONSIDERATION
For the nutritional content of various foodsDifferent groups of animals have different nutritional requirements. Proteins, carbohydrates/fats, vitamins and minerals. Give a raptor all the hamburger or deboned chicken they want and their bones snap in a week. The ratio of minerals is off (calcium to phosphorus) with the result that calcium is lost from their bones. It is important to buy food specific for a species. Nobody should be feeding cat food to dogs, it is too high in fat. Catfish food is too high in fats for koi.
The percentage of protein in food does not tell the whole story. It is the balance of the 20 amino acids that is essential. Cartilage has a different and limited amino acid profile compared to muscle meat. Poor quality dog food has lots of cartilage and other limited amino acid proteins, although it has the same "percentage" of total amino acids as more expensive food.
Let's say an animal is making a specific protein (a long chain of amino acids). Amino acids are made by adding single amino acids one by one onto a growing chain. As the code is read from the messenger RNA. Here is how it looks:
-UUU-UUA-CCC-AUU--AGU- AUG- etc. (RNA)
-Phe---Leu---Pro---Ile-----Ser---- Met --etc. (protein)But lets say that the protein in the diet is deficient in Proline, then the chain building simply stops at that point.
-UUU-UUA-CCC-AUU-AGU- AUG- etc. (RNA)
-Phe---Leu--- (protein termination)Protein has a couple of functions. One is for making cartilage and muscles, etc. called structural proteins. Plants don't have structural proteins at all, they use cellulose (a simple variation of starch) to make stiff walls that hold the tree up. The most important function of proteins is for enzymes. It is enzymes that catalyze or make reactions happen for everything else required by the plant or animal, the energy, fats, nucleic acids, etc. that make the body function. And enzymes are very complex proteins compared to structural proteins. When poor quality protein is used, it is the enzymes that suffer first.
Vitamins (and trace minerals) for absolutely required for the correct functioning of enzymes. Vit C is essential for making collagen (what holds the face up). But collagen is also what has to be "laid down" in position before bone cells will line up to make bone. So in a growing fish, the lack of Vit C results in bone deformities, areas where the collagen didn't get made in time. Vitamin C breaks down rapidly at any temp, but the hotter, the faster.
The "nutritional value" or "bioavailability" of food is important. Vitamins break down rapidly when food is improperly stored. In commercial applications, the food is used up so fast that it doesn't have time to degrade. Fats also degrade rapidly. And then there is "spoilage", when microbes (mostly fungi) begin growing. Fungi make really lousy toxins. A fungi like Aspergillus makes aflatoxin, the most carcinogenic substance on earth. Bacteria make toxins, but they aren't in the same league with fungi.
"Dry" food that has been sitting around at room temp has lost bioavailability. The first food I bought was a bag of catfish chow. It was sitting in a hot feed store warehouse. The minute I opened the bag it smelled rancid, the fat had already begun to break down.
The ideal food for fish, in terms of balanced proteins and vitamins and minerals are things that grow in the water, including other fish made into fish meal. As everyone knows, the "shelf life" of seafood or freshwater fish is very, very short. Processing the food into fish food (desiccation) does extend the shelf life somewhat. But fish food needs to be kept frozen to retain bioavailability and freshness. In a refrigerator, bacterial growth slows down to a crawl .... and fungi go nuts. They LOVE cool, moist conditions. Which is why anything left in a frig for a while is covered in mold. And most koi people say that after 6 months in the freezer, the Vit C starts being lost.
Growing fish need more protein that fish at full size. If fish are not growing, it is the food (second after poor water quality). My goldfish weren't growing. Within 1 week after starting them on high quality food, I noticed a change in activity levels, "sheen" or that healthy shine they get. It took longer to notice that most were growing again.
In Noga (p. 221) he talks about carbohydrates. "Fish can digest simple sugars efficiently, but as the sugar molecules become large and more complex, digestibility decreases rapidly. For example, glucose is much more digestible than starch. This is especially true for cold water species". He says the primary energy sources for fish are fats and proteins. The fats have to be plant based, unsaturated.
OTOH, unsaturated oils tend to go rancid fast, and at least in salmonids, rancid fats can cause fatty infiltration of the liver and severe anemia. Fatty liver is also found with purely poor nutrition.
pH
Goldfish can thrive at a wide range of pH, from 6.6 or so to 8.6 or so. Sometimes the pH can increase higher than this, or, the water suddenly comes out of the tap at a higher pH. Water companies sometimes add sodium hydroxide to the water to prevent leaching of lead out of pipes. This should also be a hint to check the lead levels in your water.A breeder of goldfish in China says "All the books on goldfish in China said the water of PH 7.8-8.6 can inhibit the reproduction of bacteria." Sun Hongliang
If your pH is so far off you must change it, change it in a big rubbermaid garbage can before adding it to the tank.
If your water is hard (has plenty of calcium) muriatic acid (AKA hydrochloric acid (HCl)) can be used to bring the pH down. In a pond, add the acid to a milk jug of water, put in a pin hole and drip it in testing the pH every so often (thanks rec.pond for the idea).
If your hardness level is low, then gypsum (pure gypsum from garden center) is a better idea. It will add calcium and lower the pH as it adds a buffer system. Dissolve the gypsum in a bucket of water, add very slowly checking pH.
Do not lower pH by more than 0.2 pH in 12 hours.
If your hardness is very high, you can also try aluminum sulfate which will also precipitate out some of the hardness and lower pH. Again, add it slowly and don't remove more than 1/2 hardness as aluminum is toxic too at lower pH and low hardness. Also, aluminum is suspected of precipitating into fish gills if it comes out of solution too fast. Aluminum sulfate is the main ingredient in products that remove cloudiness (high calcium) and metals from water. It is the only ingredient in Brite and Clear.
If your pH is too low, add organic dolomitic lime. Start with 1 teaspoon per 20 gallons and add in small increments until the desired level is reached.
Stock solution of SODIUM THIOSULFATE
4 oz of sodium thiosulfate crystals in 1 gallon of water is the stock solution.
Use one drop of stock per gallon of water, but be sure to check the water to make sure the chlorine is inactivated. Always test the strength of each batch. Bulk is available at Aquatic Eco-systems. In water, it has a lot of leeway before it could make fish sick so add more rather than risk under dosing and not getting all the chlorines or chloramines.SNAILS
Snail are the intermediate host for quite a few disease.Parasites: Black Spot Disease, (metacercaria (Neascus), introduced through snails or other aquatic creatures into an aquatic situation) Flukes. They're a tiny parasitic flatworm that reach a maximum length of 1 mm. They infest the gills & skin of fish & are passed from fish to fish. They're sometimes introduced from wild caught or pond raised fish, but some types can be introduced from pond snails too.
Bacteria: Any time snails are in an environment where certain bacteria like salmonicida or hydrophila are present, they have the capability of incubating the strain to release on introduction to other environments. It appears to have absolutely no effect on the snails. They are great incubators.
Culturing on TSA 5% sheep have proven them to be carriers. Nematodes are ones that pass eggs into the water that release free swimming larva which invade things like snails to use as an intermediate host. The exceptions being viviparous genera Camallanus and Philometra which release larva directly into the water who then seek an intermediate host. The immature nematode either completes development to the adult stage in the intermediate host or becomes encysted as a larval form in the tissue or body cavity. Fish often serve as a secondary intermediate host or a parasitic transporter. Then the cycle is completed by other carnivorous predators, which starts the whole thing all over again. I think the key here is any host who is eaten by what ever will produce the necessary means to reproduce and perpetuate the species. This is not exclusive to snails.
Species of pathogens: Diplostomum spathaceum, Diplostomum huronense, Sanguinicola davisi, saguinicola klamathensis and Cardicola alseae, Posthodiplostomum minimum, nanophyetus salmincola . common names are: Eye flukes, Blood flukes, White grubs, Salmon flukes.
The Goldfish GuruBRINGING FISH IN FROM THE POND OR,
CLEANING A BADLY MUCKED UP PONDFish that come inside from ponds need to be "cleaned off" much the same way plants do. The pond is usually a healthy place for fish with a wide range of natural foods and sun. However, the aquarium is not natural, not exposed to sun and whatever bugs the fish shrugged off in the pond can make them quite ill inside.
If the pond is being cleaned, the tanks can be filled with the pond water.
Tanks are setup inside, temperature and pH is matched to outside temps. Do not use pond water at all, who knows what lurks out there. A 3% salt dip is set up inside, also same temp.
Fish are removed at night with a flashlight and a net, or, the pond is drawn down until fish can be safely netted. Potassium permanganate is added to the water so when the muck gets stirred up during netting, the toxins are neutralized.
We use a super heavy plastic bag (with water to cover the fish) inside a big tub with handles. The fish are netted a couple at a time and the bucket is carried inside.
One by one, the fish are examined, scrapes done, they are salt dipped and put into tanks. Fish with problems go into a treatment tank. All tanks are treated with PP (or with Quick Cure if ich is present) for 3 days. All fish are fed Romet B for 10 days minimum.
The salt dip knocks parasites off. The PP knocks down most kind of parasites. Water quality is carefully monitored and water changed if any ammonia is present (salt dips cause purging and increase in ammonia production for a few days). The Romet B handles most bacteria. Sores,
ragged fins, etc. are treated topically. If severe, they are treated with TMP-4 in the water (which will kill the biofilter!!) and/or Baytril injections. If ich is found (GF), Quick Cure is used instead of PP.Generally, stress is the big problem the first week, parasites the next and bacteria after that. Keeping the water pristine is essential.
DECORATIONS
It is generally safe to put fish specific decorations in a tank. However, even those should be put into hot water and allowed to sit overnight, then check the color of the water, the pH and hardness to see if any parameters have changed. Glass objects are usually safe as long as they are rounded, not sharp. Be very careful with rocks as these can leach all kinds of potential toxins.WORMS AND OTHER LIVE FOODS
In the wild, fish eat almost everything that moves in the pond. If a good quality food is being fed (see general consideration) then feeding them other things is more for the keeper's benefit than the health of the fish. People have reported problems feeding live or fresh frozen live type foods. Suppliers do not need to follow the minimal health care standards set for food meant for human consumption. However, foods that are irradiated are very likely to be bacteria free. Going out into the yard to collect food can be done, but need to know if the area has been sprayed with pesticides, insecticides, or herbicides. It is better to get pre-cooked "for human consumption" cocktail shrimp and chop finely. Fish will love that. They also enjoy finely minced fresh veggies. Vitamin C deteriorates quickly and fresh veggies provide vitamin C. Stick with green veggies.CALCULATING GALLONS
Calculate the total volume of the pond in feet. Length x width x depth then multiply by 7.5 gallons per cubic foot. One cubic foot (28.3 litters) of water weighs 62.43 lb (28.32 kg)THE EFFECT OF HIGH TEMPERATURES ON FEEDING
Noga says koi and goldfish have an upper tolerance of 86oF. But qualifies that by saying this depends on prior acclimation. So if the temp has been climbing slowly, they can handle higher temps better than if the temp swings up rapidly, like in really small ponds.
A lot seems to depend on oxygen level too (goldfish eat well at 85 with oxygenation!!). Noga says "When the temp is near a species upper lethal limit, it is often wise to reduce or stop feeding, since the amount of oxygen needed for both homeostasis (energy needed to just stay alive/comment-mine) and digestion of food may exceed the amount of oxygen that can be extracted from the water".
So I guess the best idea is to check what the temp is on the bottom of the pond, lift the pumps a little higher so the cool bottom water isn't mixed with the hot top (sound familiar in reverse?). But make sure the oxygenation is on full blast. Hey, good reason to get a fountain, it oxygenates and cools the water at the same time.
I am using a misting system to water the grass during the heat of the day in the greenhouse and this cools it down too.
Feed late in the day, after it cools down and the water fully oxygenated by the plants, maybe for 5 minutes and high carbohydrates that are easily digested. Don't feed in the morning when the oxygen is at the lowest point. If the fish usually come up to eat, but are sitting (as someone pointed out) on the bottom because it is cooler down there, don't feed at all.
OTOH, if they are swimming around like normal and begging, give them a little food. Fish can go for days without food. No pond is actually "food-less" either. I don't feed at all when the outside temp is over 90oF. I keep plenty of duckweed in the pond for snacking.AGING WATER
GF seem to like aged water. This is done by adding dechlor and letting it stand, or better yet, dropping in an airstone. Often the pH will change when CO2 is degassed. Aging water can prevent gas bubble disease if the water comes out of deep wells under pressure. The temperature of the water is moderated. Rubbermaid garbage cans make good "vats" and can be stored elsewhere during the week. Small pumps can move the water from the vat to the tanks.SOFTENED, DISTILLED OR REVERSE OSMOSIS WATER
Distilled and RO water is stripped of minerals. There is no buffer or "hardness" in soft water. This means that the pH of the water can swing wildly when nearly anything that isn't a neutral pH is added, or when organic acids, CO2, ammonia or nitrites build up.
For this reason, it is highly recommended that anyone who uses soft water must add a calcium source to the water to bring the hardness up to at least 20 ppm. Adding organic dolomitic lime or crushed coral will provide the hardness. I use softened water and put the organic lime in both my aging vats and in the tanks so it will release slowly in response to pH conditions.
There are a great many medications and treatments that specifically state they are toxic in low pH and low or high "hardness" waters. Medications like this must be avoided, and those that don't state what the contents are must be avoided as well.
Water is softened by exchanging sodium (Na+) ions for other ions like calcium (Ca2+). This puts a lot of sodium ions into the water. Using a salinity meter (the "saltiness" of NaCl is entirely due to the chloride ion (Cl)) the sodium concentration of one person's soft water was determined to be 1.4%. This person had sick and dying fish. This problem was resolved by bypassing her softener.
So it is possible that adding NaCl to a tank that already has high sodium ion concentration might push the sodium into the toxic range for fish.
High salt does cause shredding of fins.CHARCOAL
Regular charcoal is not used on a routine basis. Some is reported to contain high levels of phosphates so check to make sure it is phosphate free. Charcoal is used to remove medications, altho water changes are better.
Anthracite coal is very hard and is broken down to the consistency of rice grains. It's action is not comparable to soft charcoal. Anthracite adsorbs organic material to the surface, charcoal absorbs it into the matrix. Anthracite coal is used in city water purification systems and is easily recharged and reusable. It takes very high temperatures to burn the organics out of charcoal, so it is tossed out. The only source of anthracite I know is Jo Ann Burke.SALT CREEP
But have to watch "salt creep" for those of us with no salinity meter. Fortunately, Aquarium Pharmaceuticals now has an easy testing kit for "ponds" available. More water evaporates in hot weather. But no salt evaporates. So when we draw down 30%, we add salt for 30%, but dont take into account that maybe 2-3% of water was gone already. So the salt builds up slowly.. as do all chemicals in the water that do not degas or evaporate.WHITE FOAM AT THE SURFACE
This is almost always the result of proteins in the water. That much protein usually indicates overfeeding of high protein foods or not enough water changes. Other colored foams can be due to medications.CHLORINES AND CHLORAMINES
Noga says "Chloramines are.... treated with a chemical neutralizer, such as SODIUM THIOSULFATE, to break the chlorine-ammonia bond. Because the chemical neutralization releases ammonia, this must also be removed. Many commercial chloramine neutralizers do not remove ammonia, but simply cause the ammonia test to read negative." .. so, if there is a lot of chloramines in the water, sodium thiosulfate is used and results in the presence of ammonia at least they will be detectable with Nessler reagents.. Noga relates three ways to remove chloramines Use super strength 5-1 Water conditioner by AP, 2- Use saltwater MarPlex, 3 Add sodium thiosulfate .... cheapest is mix up a stock solution of 4 oz of ST to a gallon of distilled water and used GENERALLY at the rate of one drop per gallon. However, the water must be tested to make sure that enough dechlor is used.GOING ON VACATION
If the vacation is going to be a week or less, it is best to not have them fed while you are gone. Non fish people tend to seriously overfeed GF because the GF beg for food all the time.
Those "slowly" dissolving cubes must be tested before actually going on vacation. Most people find they dissolve very fast and foul the tank water.
Letting the tank water temperature drop and turning the lights back to shorter on periods also keeps the water quality higher. A water change is done right before leaving for vacation.
If somebody is going to come in to feed the fish, then prepackage each days meal in an envelope, label the day, and tape to the tank. Hide the rest of the food to prevent overfeeding.