Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] a little OT

On 03/31/2013 09:09 PM, Dawn Moneyhan wrote:
> Larry, sorry to hear of your losses. I'm with Ray about checking pH with your liquid test kits at the store as well as in your tank.

I think I've eliminated that as a problem. The last fish I got was
looking a bit sluggish in the problem tank, so I filled a 20 gallon with
water from the same source and moved him/her to it. Happiest fish you
ever saw - swims up to greet me when I open the lid - eats like a pig :-).

So it would seem to be something in the 29 that's poisoning the water.
Something that the test kits doen't test and the AquaSafe doesn't
neutralize. I normally don't use carbon in the filter but I'm going to
do so in that tank along with removing everything except the gravel and
the water. Then I'll try it with a couple of feeders.

> Can you tell us what procedure you used for acclimation of the fish and for how long? Were there any symptoms at all before the fish died?

Put'em in a bucket with the store water - gradually add water from my
tank for 30-60 minutes - submerse the bucket in the tank. Yes I know
that common knowledge says store water is bad but I think it's
preferable to netting the fish or skipping the acclimation. Works for me.

No symptoms I could see except they weren't very interested in food -
they eventually ate it but the enthusiasm was lacking.

As far as your comments on tank size, I get into trouble every time this
comes up. Sure, that's the ideal, but we keep a lot of fish in a much
smaller environment than ideal. Back in the 1940's, 20 square inches of
water surface per inch of goldfish was the rule. That would have meant
that a 10" fish only needed a 10"x20" tank which of course is
ridiculous. But they didn't reach 10" because the small tanks inhibited
their growth.

I had two common goldfish in a 10 gallon tank for 10 years until my
little sister killed them by dumping a whole can of food in the tank -
for some reason my mother prevented me from killing her :-). They grew
to about 3" fairly rapidly and stopped. There were no visible signs of
deformity and their behavior was normal. BTW, there were no filters or
water conditioners available back then - at least not available in pet
shops, most of which were departments in bigger stores. We just set our
water out overnight to get rid of chlorine and did a lot of water changes.

So, while I don't disagree with your ideal, in practice I have yet to
see 2 goldfish in a 100 gallon tank. I'm sure there's one somewhere.
Most koi in ponds don't have that kind of space.

I fully expect to get horrified responses to this post - I always do
:-). But please note that recommendations for goldfish tank size vary
quite a bit - here's one from goldfishconnection.com:

"At minimum ten gallons of tank space must be allowed for each goldfish.
If your intent is to collect large, show-quality goldfish then this
limit increases to 20-30 gallons per goldfish."

Larry B