it is a thirty litre tank with four small golfish normal strip light, no heater small filter?

Question

but fine for the tank size so they said in the pet shop

thankyou for your answers ive had the fish forabout three months now and they have seemed fne i did have an elite stingray filter but just changed it as the other one kept breaking but it is for a 30 litre tank and is working so dont know if that could be the problem good news tho little winston gills are both now working altho his dorsel fin and another ones top fin is slightly down

Answer 1

The first lesson is to do your own research before you go to the pet store so you know what the requirements are for any pet before you buy it. I don't know how things work where you live, but where I'm at in the US, it's often high school students working part time for minimum wage, and many don't know the first thing about animals.

Depending on the type of goldfish you bought, fancy types (those with a double tail) will get to be 20-25 cm as adults, and commons (those with a single tail) will grow 25-45 cm.

Each goldfish should have at least 38-75 liters for itself. Your tank may be able to hold them for a while, but you'll eventually need something larger.

They probably didn't mention cycling to you either. Since goldfish produce a lot of wastes, you'll need to do partial water changes frequently during the first few months. Once your tank has become established, there will be bacteria that will help break down the wastes. One of the wastes that goldfish produce is ammonia, and this is toxic to them. The bacteria will convert the ammonia to nitrite (also toxic), then to nitrate, which is not toxic as long as the levels don't get too high. Untill this happens (it will take 3-6 weeks in most cases), you'll have to do water changes so the fish don't get ammonia poisoning and die. During this time that the bacteria present will be multiplying quickly, the water will look cloudy at times. This is normal, so don't think it's something going wrong, and clean the tank too well. Once the bacteria have a large enough population to convert all the ammonia and nitrite, the reproduction will slow down, and the tank will clear on its own.

I've included a few links for you below about general goldfish keeping, the nitrogen cycle (the bacteria that convert the ammonia to nitrate) and ammonia poisoning, so you'll recognize it if your fish start to become infected.

Answer 2

Goldfish in general require in the region of 20 sq in of surface area per inch of fish, while they may be small now they have the potential to grow to 12"+, so no its not the best way to keep goldfish and I'd go back with at least 2 of them and be looking to upgrade the tank to something in the region of 40/50 gallons at some stage.

If you do go back you may get the comment that fish grow to the size of the tank, this is incorrect, fish secrete a vitamin which gathers in the water a glands then measures the strength of this vitamin and then sends a signal to stop growing however, if the fish has evolved in a river the gland is redundant as the river would wash away the secretion. but more importantly if you look after your charges properly you will be doing 20/30 pct water changes every 2 weeks, so therefore diluting the vitamin, thus making it null and void, the fish will continue to grow, until there's insufficient oxygen or the water becomes so contaminated that 20/30 pct every 2 weeks is insufficient to reduce the toxicity at which time the fish will go into a slow decline and die. You will more than likely not now why there'll be no clues in most cases, in some you will find that the fish begin to have succession of lesions on there body, become ill more frequently.
Of course there lifespan will be drastically reduced.

AJ

Answer 3

Bambi, you can add to your original question by choosing the pencil. This will keep all details in one spot.

It sounds like you just got your tank. It also sounds like the people at the store sold you comet goldfish, these are the cheap ones sold as feeders. There are a few problems with this setup.

First the tank needs to cycle. This is a process where toxins are converted to something that won't kill the fish. Here's a link with more information:

http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

Another issue is that these fish will eventually get to be several feet long and 4 of them in that tank just won't cut it in the long run. What you have now are babies, but they will grow. The people at pet stores do this a lot and it's terrible.

One other thing is that quite often these fish have become ill before you bring them home due to how they are raised and kept by the breeders and in the stores. The good news in that if they live for a couple of weeks, they will probably live for quite a few years. The bad news is that quite often, due to these illnesses, they don't live very long when you bring them home.

If you combine possible ill health with what is now bad water from a just beginning cycle, your fish is probably having problems breathing poisons. If you have a way to test the water, see what the ammonia and nitrite levels are. If you don't have a way to test yet, take a sample to the pet store, they should be willing to test for you.

I am assuming that you treated your water first with a dechlorinator. If not, then that's another issue. But I'm sure the store wouldn't have let you go without making that sale.

Answer 4

The filter is too small. Get a filter that says it is for a thirty liter tank.