Sad News

Dora passed away recently. I don't know why, because the water quality was good and the other fish were fine... but alas she is gone.

Wonderboy

After telling my friend about Ultimate Aquarium, she decided to go have a look. She was SUPER excited when she found her 'wonderboy' there. He is not named wonderboy... she just got him tonight and is hoping for name suggestions. Something fancy and foreign. Anyways, here are a few pictures and a video of the big boy!

He is quite the marvelous fish. He is pretty large short-tailed ryukin. Please suggest names! The only name we have now is Hakari.


Things are going well with Mabel, Zwart, and Dora. They are quite the poopers and need many waterchanges; I am hoping to upgrade to a new tank soon. As soon as money starts growing on trees! I decided I am going to start celebrating my fishes 'birthdays' (since I don't know when they were born, I will just celebrate their birthday on the day I got them.)

Update!

It has been quite a while since my last post, I lost track of time. 

What better way to start the new year then take some pictures of your goldfish?

Mabel has grown a nice big wen now, it is really impressive when you compare it to her photo of when I first got her. 

I said before that I would post a photo of one of Zwart's funny faces. Here it is! It took me forever to get this photo - and even then it is a little blurry. I need a better camera. I had taken 126 photos and was getting more than a little frustrated with Zwart. It was probably my fault I couldn't catch him with his mouth open, but.... after 126 pictures you'd think that maybe I would have got the hang of it. So I said, "Zwart! Look at me! Open you mouth and keep it open!" The next photo was, in my opinion, perfect! Oh, and the little basket in the corner of the photo is where a plant used to be... but some little fishes ate it. I need to take the basket out.

Today

At first

Thought it might be interesting to see Dora recently and when I first got her. 

I am looking into getting a bigger tank. I have a 36 gallon tank and three goldfish; it is super cramped. I have to have 2 filters running and do water changes twice a week. I am hoping to get a 55 at least. Just need to start saving up!

Goldfish Update

Sorry I have not posted in a while, things have been pretty busy. A friend of mine is having trouble with ammonia in her tap water, and it is making cycling a new tank pretty hard. If anybody reading this is having this same issue, this is the advice I gave her.

The ammonia reading you are getting from the tap is probably from the chloramine used to treat the water by the city. Chloramine is a compound chemical made by bonding chlorine and ammonia. Treat the tap water with dechlorinator, stir it well, then test it. See if the level changes. If it reads just under 0.25, that is fine your tank's bacteria will grow to compensate. If it reads between 0.25 and 0.5, do a 50% water change. If it gets up to 1.0, then do a 75% water change. You need to trust that you removed 50% or 75% of the ammonia during the water change to keep the level low.

I know this can be hard, and that sometimes things look impossible. But in the end, your tank will develop good bacteria to fight the ammonia in your tap, and right now you just need to find a place where your fish can pull through while that happens. An ammonia remover such as AmQuel Plus would probably be best now, just for the tap water coming in. You do need some ammonia right now so your developing bacteria have something to feed on.
Until you can get an ammonia remover and your bacteria is established, there is not much you can do. If you have plants and a good filter then you are doing pretty much everything you can. Extra aeration during this time of stress on your fish is ideal, high oxygen levels will help the fish survive ammonia levels. I know it is a lot of work, but try to keep ammonia below .5 until you can get some AmQuel Plus. It is sold at PetSmart. AmQuel Plus looks really good to me:
AmQuel Plus is nontoxic
AmQuel Plus removes nitrite.
AmQuel Plus removes all forms of ammonia.
AmQuel Plus removes nitrate.
AmQuel Plus does not affect the pH.
AmQuel Plus does not interfere with the beneficial nitrifying bacteria or their food sources.

I hope this helped if you are having issues with cycling a tank with high ammonia levels.
Here is a picture of my young ryukin that has recently grown really large. I feed her Hikari Wheat Germ, and she loves it and it is great for her digestion. I am sorry this photo is a little blurry. The water looks kind of nasty in this picture, and you cannot see her pretty metallic scales. I guess I will just have to take another photo later.

Mabel

After many hours of consideration, I have named my oranda Mabel!! Thank you to all who contributed name ideas.

New Oranda!!

I got a new oranda when I stopped at Ultimate Aquarium on the way back from a friend's house, and it was TOTALLY worth the trip. This beautiful fish, although pricey, was EXACTLY what I was looking for!! But now that I have her, I have no clue what to name her. I am looking for some creative ideas, so please comment!! (She is the orange fish for those of you who do not know goldfish breeds) If the video does not work, than let me know I will try again - it works best if you use Firefox.

My goldfish Zwart

I recently got a new black moor I have named Zwart - Dutch for black. I got him at a fantastic pet store while I was around the area, Ultimate Aquarium, and he has been my baby ever since. I should take a photo of when he makes faces at me - it's hilarious! Anyways, he is a great swimmer, though not amazing at finding sinking food he is fine with floating pellets. Zwart loves to bug my poor snails, he sucks them off the glass and tosses them to the ground. He's my little rascal!! He may even have a friend this Friday or Saturday - check back to see!!