is 3 Gallon enough?

Question

I have 2,5" small goldfish and my aquarium 16w x 9d x 10h i thing about 3 gallon water is the aquarium should be anough for my one goldfish for now? and how much pellet perday for feeding my gold fish? is any idea to keep my tank clean more than 1 weeks?

my goldfish type is oranda and i thing my tank is 4 or 5 gallon i'm looking the bigger tank, can anyone help me to find cheap aquarium for 15 or 20 gallon? i live in arizona

Answer 1

You need at least a 29 for two goldfish. A filter will keep it cleaner. Goldfish tanks need weekly cleaning with a gravel vac, about 20-25% of the water.

Answer 2

Kylie gave you good advice on the size tank you will eventually need.

As far as where to get a cheap tank - try yardsales, flea markets, your paper's classifieds, or this website: http://www.freecycle.org/ - everything listed is free! Groups are organized by area, too, and you can try more than one to increase your search area.

Just make sure the tank holds water before you take/buy it and clean it well with a mild bleach solution to kill any algal or fungal spores, and encycted bacteria. Make by using 1 part bleach to 19 parts water, wipe on all surfaces, and let sit at least 15 minutes. Rinse very well and add a few extra drops of dechlorinator the first time you fill it. Same for any filters, decor, etc., just remove the filter motor before soaking (or fill the filter and run it a while with the bleach solution).

Feed your fish as much as they will eat in 2 minutes - the number of pellets will depend on their size. Statrt with a few and add a few more at a time. Remove any that aren't eaten after the two minutes are up. In a few days, you'll have a good idea how many to add.

The secret to a clean tank is to cycle it (see link below) and do regular water changes of 20-30% about once a week. Use a gravel vacuum to keep the bottom clean.

Answer 3

I go by one inch per one gallon. So if you have 4 fish that equal up to about 38 inches you need a tank 38 gallons or more. I have a manual rock pump i use to clean my tank. It works wonders, no changing out the water, just tanks out 25% of the water while you clean the rocks and get all the nasties out and refill what you take, and a tank brush works good on the walls.

Answer 4

No way! Goldfish are VERY dirty. They say you need 10 gallons of water per one goldfish.

Goldfish will overeat, so be carefull about feeding too much, then they have that much more waste. I would get a bigger tank. They are easier to keep clean, you just exchage 20% of the water every couple of weeks and vaccuum the gravel.

Answer 5

Thats about enough water in the tank, and about 2 pellets per morning, 2 per night. And there is noway you could keep your tank clean for more then one week, goldfish are the dirtiest fish ever, they are the 'poopenaters' they will keep your tank dirty unless you buy a filter.

Answer 6

A 3, 4, or 5 is going to be to small you should get a 10 gal. a least or mabye your aunt will be like my aunt and give you a 25 gal. tank! But Mabye you can find a cheap one at ebay(I found a 60 gal. with stand for $10 once)

Answer 7

No. Your aquarium is 6 gallons,and that is too small for just one 5" Goldfish.

Answer 8

no, if they're fancies they needs 10gallons each now, and 20gallons when they're adults. they will get up to 8". you'll also need a good filter. until you can get a or 20 or 30gallon do 20% water changes everyday to prevent extreme ammonia build up.

if they're a common or slim bodied goldfish they need even more space than that. they can get up to 18" but usally no bigger than 16"

Answer 9

This may sound outrageous to you but I think PETA of all things has information on how to give fish the correct size tank for fish. I will look for the link.

Answer 10

First we'll start with your food.

Flakes:
Sit at your tank during its feed, individually feed it flakes 1 by 1 for 5 minutes, do not allow it to let any drop to the bottom of the tank... have the fish eat them. After 5 minutes... take a mental note of how much he ate, and feed him that amount once daily.

For pellets its very difficult to judge what to feed them... Good thing about pellets is that they float! or most do... Floating pellets are great cause you can like the above suggestion for flakes, dump some pellets in, wait 5 minutes, watch how many it eats.. then you can easily retrieve the leftovers with a net. Again, take tabs of its intake, give it this once daily.

Over feeding your tank will do the same as sediment. It will produce Toxins as the food decomposes... What kind of toxins? Lets have a look at the capacity problem and I will explain..

Goldfish in particular extrete massive amounts of sediment into the water. Generally as a rule of thumb I would always reccomend 20 gallons for a gold fish (or a pair should do alright).

Goldfish are simply filthy in comparison to most fish. They will release about twice the amounts of NH3/NH4+ out of their sediment, and this makes it quite difficult to establish an adequate biological filter for them.

If there is not adequate supply of ecologically friendly areobic bacteria to mitigate the toxins released during the decomposition of the sediment, then the ammonia (NH3/NH4+) will freeflow into the water collumn and degrade the coating of slimey enzymes around your fish.

This becomes extremely problematic, as fish do not live in clean water in the terms of distilled water. But their reference to clean water is simply ecologically clean water. It is laden with microbes of a myriad shapes sizes and forms...

These microbes are just like bacteria in the human body. Many of them we need to adequately survive, for example the protein eating bacteria which reside in our upper G.I. Tract litterally save us from red meat killing us in the process of digestion.

Likewise, these germs and nasties in your water collumn (the freeflowing body is the collumn) will cause problems if there are abnormal levels of ammonia in the water. When the coating of enzymes degrades, the fish will moreless lose a coating of tough body armour. No longer will it be adequately protected from the germs in the water... Namely the flagellum and protozoans. This coating of enzymes is also dubbed "The stress coat" as it will readily degrade from stress also, ontop of all of the chemicals that can break it down.

2 notable murderers of goldfish (also any new tank will be pegged with these parasites and named "New Tank Syndrome".) are Ich (Ichthyophthirius multifilis) and Velvet (Oodinium).

Ich is named White spot disease, as when the parasites latch onto the fish, they resemble as if they were granules of sugar, or salt. The fish will become covered in them very quickly and suffer greatly from it. This parasite is protozoan in origin, and generally will measureup to about 1mm and be a very white colouration.

Velvet, or Oodinium is quite simmilar to Ich. Again, when the stress coat dissolves, again the parasites will latch onto the outer body of your fish and begin to feed itself upon the fish.
Unlike Ich, this is NOT white. Instead it is almost of a yellowish tint, again looking like a product like salt was dumped over the fish, this may be considered a closer match to Aspertame "Artificial sweetener" from its yellow tint. Oodinium parasites are also notably quite smaller than Ich, but will readily destroy your livestock if unattended.

As mentioned above, these issues are also pegged as "New tank syndrome" the reason for this is when new tanks are setup without allowing thte water to reach its ecological prime, again the sediment is not decomposed from the aerobic bacterium and fails to break down nitrogen isotopes... thus no bacteria, the ammonia will spread also.

Both these issues are in 1 the same.


If you are looking for a home for 2 goldfish, you need a larger aquarium to facilitate this.

If you are looking for FISH to put in a 3 gallon tank, there are options. Dwarf cichlids (no offence but much more resiliant, beautiful and personal than a goldfish) can be sustained in small numbers in a 3 gallon tank. Perhaps 2 I'm talking. As these fish do not grow overly large... maybe 1.5 inches... and do not produce nearly a fraction of the toxins from sediment as a goldfish.

Alternatively, we can look into guppies, which are vibrant and if you are interested enough you may obtain very very VERY beautiful champoin bred moscowian guppies and have people like me cry over it.

Molly fish, a little dull, but colourful!

Danios, Shoaling dither fish.

Dont purchase plecos... use otocinclus... even if a pleco looks the size of your pinky when you buy it, it WILL be the size of a paper towel tube in a year.

I hope this helps you out!

NOTE: If you wonder why goldfish manage to live in bowls its because the water is changed nearly everyday. Even at this, goldfish which live in a bowl die beyond too early, and never live a wholesome lifestyle.