New Arrivals - Ranchus!

Last Saturday, my mom and my brother were in San Antonio when they saw some ranchus at a pet store.  There are NEVER any ranchus down where I live and my mom asked if I wanted one.  After a lot of inner debate, I decided yes.  She bought two, though, in case one died on the trip, but both survived.  And they are incredibly cute!

They are quite tiny, I'd say the smallest one is about an 1" from tip to tip, but I'd have to measure.  Recently my mom suggested the possibility of the calico being a lionhead, as the white ranchu has a much sharper "tuck" on its tail.  It'll be very interesting to see what they grow up to!

Not sure on any names , but I'm gonna hold off on that until the QT is over, haha

Nano Vide and Phoebe

Everyone's doing okay so far!  Phoebe doesn't look like she feels good today... maybe because I forgot to turn off their tank light last night... D:

I'm pretty sure Nano's grown a bit!  His overall shape has stayed the same, but he's larger, as if someone took him in photoshop and used the transform tool to make him bigger, hahaha.  Vide is about the same size as the Medium goldfish you see in petstores, so Nano's getting there!  I'll upload some better pictures later.

Like I said, Phoebe's not feeling well today--usually she's swimming around.  It's really odd, though, this morning I found that there's a lot of debris floating around and the filters don't look like they're sucking up any of poo from the bottom... maybe I'll have to clean the filters again.  Or replace them with a couple of AquaClears! :D :D  Someday, someday....

An update and extremely disorganized thoughts

Phoebe's dropsy has gone down for now.  I'm getting her used to water with no epsom salt, then I'm going to put her back in the 75.  There's no doubt she'll revert soon, which kind of makes me feel like I'm fighting a lost cause.  Fish with dropsy don't have a good outlook, and treatment just kind of postpones the inevitable.  She's not acting weak or showing any signs of "death", which makes it feel wrong to euthanize her.  But I know probably later this year, I will lose her.

Nano is showing veeeeeery small signs of dropsy too.  The top of his body, right before the dorsal fin, looks "prickly" if you observe him really closely.  And I wouldn't be surprised if Vide had it too.  I'm unsure about both of them.  I will wait until it "gets worse" with Nano, then I can be 100% sure and start treatment.  It sucks, because Nano's like my baby.

Cogburn's had a lot of those bacterial spots going on, but that's my fault.  I keep missing his waterchanges by a couple of days.  That shouldn't make such a noticeable difference, but he's a big fish in a 26 gallon (which, according to online calculators, only holds 24 gallons) and working with minimums gives little to no room for error.  I hope that HE doesn't get a bacterial infection and starts to dropsy too.  Ugh.

In other news, I'm trying to find food that nobody will float on.  I feed my goldies BRAND NEW Pro-Gold that was soaked until the pellets fell apart and Vide STILL floated!  The only thing that they don't float on is vegetables and bloodworms.  Which isn't bad, but I would love to just plop some pellets in there and not watch Vide flip upside down or float to the top.

I want to focus on growing Nano again.  I think he's making good progress, he's starting to catch up with Vide, but he's not as big as he could/should be.  I want to feed him 3x a day again; this whole dropsy fiasco's made me skip a day of feeding them every so often--which is a no no with baby fish.

Lately I've been feeling like getting another reeeeally young small goldfish and to raise them to be nice and big.  But that's completely out of the question at this point in time, haha.

RIP Giovanni

Lot of sad things happening.

Giovanni died of dropsy today.  Though most likely she died during the night.  She was in terrible, terrible shape.  I should have put her down instead of letting her live through this.  I was too scared.

Phoebe's scales are lifting too, so I'll have to go through treatment with her.  I bought some meds from GFC yesterday; I just hope they arrive very quickly.  I can't imagine losing Phoebe.

Better and worse

Well, Giovanni's completely  recovered and went back into the 75.  Unfortunately, she started biting at Phoebe again.  But during the water change, I noticed her going at everyone else a little bit as well.  I'm starting to dislike her, just because she's making things complicated.

I really don't want to add a new set up.  I really really don't.

I remember being excited about the possibility of looking for a new ranchu.  I'll probably change my mind later, but honestly, 4 fish is looking like enough for the 75.

I don't know.  Hopefully Giovanni will get a grip and just behave. D:  Because if not, someone's going back into a 10 gallon.

Looking for a Ranchu

Once Giovanni is treated, once everyone gets along in the 75 gallon, once I can relax, I am going to look for...

A RANCHU!

I will either plan a strategic mission to nab a ranchu at PetSmart, ask them to order one for me, OR buy one from RainGarden.

I'd love to buy one from Goldfishconnection, but they're just waaaay to expensive.  And Goldfishnet is a little too expensive for me right now as well.  Raingarden has some cute ones.

But this will probably be months down the road.  Still, it's a little exciting to think about!  I used to think "Once I get to be a goldfish expert, I'm going to get a ranchu!"

Now, I'm still not an expert... but I'm going to get a ranchu anyway! :D

Update on Giovanni

I FINALLY set aside time to sit down and make a topic about Giovanni's dorsal woes, and got some answers!

This is how she was when I first saw her:


But here is her dorsal fin today, after salting up to .03% and keeping her water clean.

From what I've been told at Koko's, this is a bacterial infection, not a fungal infection as I thought.  It seems that this was either agitated or caused by her dorsal fin sticking out of the water.  I'm glad it's not something serious!

Fungus on Giovanni (pics coming)

Giovanni's developed some sort of fungus on her dorsal fin... I'm not really sure where it's coming from.  Fin rot, perhaps?

So far, Vide and Nano don't seem to be affected.  I put Giovanni in a 10g quarantine, but with the stubborn ammonia, I can't do much except waterchanges.  And with my preoccupation with other non-goldfish things right now, the waterchanges aren't coming as often as they should.

So today, I decided to move everyone.  Again.

Phoebe moved in with Nano and Vide.  So far, the black on her fins (a sign of healing from Giovanni's fin-nipping) has almost disappeared, and she's had about a month to recuperate.  (I think it's been a month...)  I'm trusting Vide and Nano to leave her alone for now.  For some reason, Giovanni was the only one who fin-nipped.

Cogburn moved into Phoebe's tank (the 26 gallon).  This is going to be his permanent home anyway.

Giovanni moved into Cogburn's previous 10 gallon, which is completely cycled.  This way, I can safely start salting and treating the fungus.

Giovanni has been stubbornly floaty.  Even after peas and fasting, she still hovers around the top and has trouble swimming.  Her dorsal fin sticks out of the water a lot, perhaps this is contributing to the "fungus"?  I have no clue.  I need to get my stuff together and get a thread topic cooking so that I can know for sure what I'm dealing with.

Goldfish Envy again

Ugh, there was this Kirin telescope at PetSmart yesterday that I can't stop thinking about!  It was sooooo small, probably an inch in total length, and had a matching buddy!  I wish I could have taken a picture!

I'm not completely sure if it was kirin, but it had similar coloration to Giovanni at least.  Like speckled-grey mixed with white, pale orange, gold, and red.  Anyway, it was SUCH a cute and pretty telescope.  I want it so badly!!

Buuuut, I need to get everything in order with my current goldfish.  I totally want to start a tank of demekins some day, though :)

It doesn't help that the Dandy Orandas auction has started up again this week.  And guess what they have a lot of?  Kirins!  More awesomely, though, they've got a good batch of huge orandas.  I can't bid, but it's so fun to look at them all.

Here's a look at some of my favorites this week.  The auction ends on Sunday!  Click here to view the showroom.

Lot #87
Beautiful R/W short-tailed ryukin!  Great hump on its back!

Lot #79
Cute kirin ranchu.

Lot #76
Really nice blue ranchu with some bronze/green coloration.
So who wants to guess what color it will change to? :P

Lot #74
Super cute sakura ranchu.  Very interesting Red-gold-white transition

Lot #26
Powerful kirin broadtail Ryukin!
Awesome body structure--I'd buy this guy in a heartbeat!

Lot #25
Fat FAT R/W oranda!  I waaaaaant!

Lot #21
Another bulky one--Look at that beautiful tail!

Lot #6
Another kirin Oranda.  Love those colors and cute face!
Definitely one of my favorites of my favorites :D

Nano's going to play with the big kids

I went to PetSmart today to look at all the tanks/stands they have on sale.  I got to look at the 40 gallon IRL instead of relying on a picture online.  It looks really big for one fish--even Cogburn's size.

Originally, I was going to have Cogburn in his own 40 gallon and everyone else in the 75.  But since realizing that a whole new setup will set me back at least $300, I started to second-guess my plans for the future.  So I've come up with something else that--with luck-- won't require me to buy a completely new set up, but will offer a home for everybody.  (I'm trying to save as much money as I can for the treatment for one of my sick dogs.)

Tomorrow, I'm going to put Nano in the 75 gallon with Vide and Giovanni.  If nobody is giving him any problems, then I will move Phoebe and her filter into Nano's 26 gallon.  Cogburn will stay where he's at for now, as he is healthier and more tolerable of the ammonia spikes that come with an uncycled tank.

Once Phoebe completely heals up, I will put her in the 75 with Nano, Vide, and Giovanni.  Cogburn will then have the 26 gallon.  If everyone gets along and no problems arise, this will be the new living arrangement.

Tbh, I'm a little sad to see Nano go into the big tank, he won't be alone in my room anymore.  He's like my little baybeeee!  But I really hope all this works out, if not, nothing's really lost, I'll just be back to square one as far as living arrangements go.  If I have to buy a new tank stand and filter, so be it, but since I was planning on moving Nano when he's older and bigger anyway, I might as well try this out.

More Crap

Giovanni's starting to fin-nip Vide now.  There's no shredded fins yet, but I have a feeling it's going to happen.  Either that, or Giovanni is actually a guy and is chasing Vide.  Which I doubt, because Vide is a bit too small to be releasing eggs, and I've seen eggs released in my tank.  This is insane!  What am I going to do??

Here are the readings for the tank:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite:  0
Nitrate:  5.0
Ph-High:  7.4
Ph-Low:  7.6  <--closest color match

Maybe it's the changing seasons or something...

40 gallon:
-Giovanni
-Cogburn

75 gallon:
-Vide
-Phoebe

Is that how it's going to have to go?  I have a good feeling that Giovanni and Cogburn will "get along" (meaning she can defend herself/or she'll be too big for him to consider sucking her eyes out.)  I just... I don't know.  Especially with Phoebe, if she goes back in and starts getting picked on, what am I going to do with her?  She can't stay in the ten gallon all her life.

Blind Phoebe

A lot has happened over the past few days.  A LOT.  I just feel like giving a run down of what happened, I guess to chronicle what's going on.  Feel free to interject hysterical "oh God oh God oh God!" moments between each sentence.

On Monday, I found that Phoebe's eyes were gone.  Cogburn had eaten both of them.  I separated her from the main tank and put her in a QT.  She was faring well, but I honestly didn't know if she was going to survive.

Tuesday I came home from school to check on everyone, and found out that Phoebe and Cogburn had been switched.  Why?  Because Cogburn was going after Vide's eyes.  My dad was the one who did the switching, and who I am in eternal gratitude towards.  I can't imagine going through another episode of a traumatized blind fish.  Thankfully, Kokos members offered very helpful advice and support--I don't know what I would do without them.

Phoebe is doing better in the main tank.  Vide and Giovanni (or Giada.  I can't keep her name straight) are ignoring her, which is the absolute best thing they can do.  Cogburn is in the 10 gallon being punished.

Now I have a dilemma of either rehoming Cogburn or buying him a tank all to himself.  I'm leaning towards getting a tank, since there's not many people down here at all that are willing to offer a big tank for one mean goldfish.  I also don't feel good just giving away a $200 fish.

So I'm going to be looking for a 40 gallon tank for him.  I think that would suffice.

Essential Goldfish Shopping List

If you are thinking of owning a fancy goldfish of your own, below is a general list you will need 

This checklist is for ONE adult FANCY goldfish.  Comets, Commons, (Feeder Fish) should have a much bigger setup, preferably a pond.

1. 20+ gallon long tank  Stocking levels for goldfish is 20 gallons for the first fish, 10 gallons for each additional fish.  Decorations, gravel, etc. are optional.
2. A strong filter  Get a filter with 10x the GPH (gallons per hour) of your tank capacity.  (A 30 gallon will need 300gph, a 50 gallon will need 500gph, etc.)  Yes, goldfish really are that messy.
3. Siphon hose or Water changing system (like this)  You'll have to change 50% of the water every week.
4. Bucket 
5. Dechlorinator (like Prime)  Fish can't live in chlorinated water from our tap.  
6. Drop Test Kit (like API)  Testing your water gives you a clear picture of your goldfish's living conditions, and will help immensely in figuring out why your fish is acting sick.  Drop tests are expensive upfront, but last a long time and save you money in the long run.  They're also more accurate than test strips.
7. Pure Salt  Aquarium Salt, pickling salt, sea salt.  As long as there are no other ingredients than SALT listed.  Salt is used to kill parasites (such as ich) or help wounds heal naturally.  It's always good to have some on hand.

[ Important ]

For an easier time, cycle your tank before buying your goldfish.  Here's how you do it.

Quick Reference Salt Dosage

(This is just for me.  I'm tired of forgetting my salt dosages.)

1 TEAspoon per gallon = 0.1% salinity
3 TEAspoons = 1 TABLEspoon


48 TEAspoons = 1 cup
24 TEAspoons = 1/2 cup


16 TABLEspoons = 1 cup
8 TABLEspoons = 1/2 cup

75 gallon dosage Process:

1.5 cup.  Add 3 times over the course of at least 36 hours.  (Afterwards add +6 teaspoons if need be)

75 Gallon after 50% waterchange:

1/4 cup + 1/2 cup

Goldfish Measurin' IV

Now I KNOW that I'm measuring Nano wrong.  In one photo, he's measured to 2.25 inches.  In another, he's exactly 2 inches.  Perhaps the fact that I'm terrible with anything that even vaguely uses numbers has something to do with it...

2.25 inches thanks to ripple distortion?

2 inches.  Clearer, but he's grown shorter?

Here's a side shot of him; at least he's grown height-wise!  And that round oranda face is starting to form

Nano today

About 2 months ago