Fish Arrivel

When you receive your fish they will have had an overnight journey after being packed the day before by us. Most of the fish adapt and settle well fairly quickly, normally within a day or so. Others take a little longer so give the fish a chance to settle into their new surroundings. Most of the year the fish will arrive to you cooler in their transport bag than your aquarium, so give the fish a good hour floating in the bag they came in on the top of the aquarium before letting the fish out. This is to equalize the temperatures of the water. It would be advisable not to tip the water the fish have travelled in into your aquarium. If you cannot fit the bag the fish arrive in on top of your aquarium to acclimatise then leave them in the box beside your aquarium for two hours before letting the fish out; just open the box do not open the bag until you are ready to release the fish. Then carefully net the fish out of the bag and place in the aquarium. It may also be beneficial from a stress reduction perspective to turn your Aquarium lights off for three hours or so while the fish are getting used to their new surroundings initially.

Disease and Quarantine

Most people do not have a separate quarantine tank for new arrivals, but if you do then my advice is to use it. Even with our very strict code of protocol and quarantine it does not guarantee 100% disease free problems. Please understand that ALL fish will carry a certain amount of natural parasites regardless; it is about the fishes immunity response that counts. This means to say that if the fish for whatever reason does not settle into their new environment their immunity response may be temporarily challenged and not be working as effective as it should be.

This could be for a few different reasons - stress of movement and journey. Water quality issues within the aquarium to name just two. On most occasions if it is just the stress of journey the fish will respond within a day or so which is why they need a bit of time to settle.

However if after 3-4 days have passed and the fish still do not look right, that is if they are on the bottom of the aquarium or hanging at the surface fins clamped, assuming everything is ok within the aquarium set up and water quality, the most common problem with Fancy Goldfish in regard to parasites is Whitespot, or Ich which can come out if the immunity of the fish is not up to full speed. This is by far the single biggest parasite problem associated with Fancy Goldfish. Quite easy to fix if caught quickly, but very difficult to cure if missed. In the early stages this parasite is barely visible to the naked eye, but as the cycle of the parasite progresses you will notice small white dots, like a dusting of Icing Sugar appear on the body, fins or both. It can develop very quickly if not treated correctly.

Every time you introduce new fish into an established set up you run the risk of potential problems. This is unfortunately part of fishkeeping and, although problems can occur, if the correct procedures are followed the chance of any problems become much less.

If you are purchasing new fish and are putting them into an establish aquarium, and even if you're not, it may be advisable to take an extra precaution of dosing the aquarium with Malachite Green the day after the fish arrive. This is a fairly “Soft” Drug and actually dose no harm to Filteration Units and plants but what it does help is if the fish are a bit low the Malachite Green will keep the Parasites at bay until the fish is back up to strength. Malachite Green is one of the best prevention and cures for White Spot and will also aid keeping other parasites at bay.

We use the raw Chemical Malachite which has not been added to any other Chemical. You can purchase this via our Website.

Unfortunate loss of Fish

Because we are dealing with live animals, sometimes on rare occasions fish do not make it through. If this has happened on the day of arrival or within 48 Hours of arrival please let us know with an emailed picture of the fish and you would then be contacted by us as to the best way forward. Normally this would involve us either replacing the fish free of charge or refunding the value of the fish lost. For fish that will be replaced no carriage charge will be applied, so there is no cost involved to the customer to receive a replacement fish. Any refund of fish required will be the fish cost only.

JUST A FEW POINTERS IN REGARD TO FANCY GOLDFISH CARE

New aquarium set up

Even if you have cycled the aquarium in truth the actual aquarium unit, water and filter will not start to function properly until you have introduced the fish. At this point careful management of water changes and feeding are recommended until the filter becomes established .You can count on up to a good three months before the filter, regardless of type, establishes itself. So new aquarium set ups sometimes have a little more to cope with initially which you need to take into account on top of all the above recommendations.

Temperature of water

Fancy Goldfish do not generally require a heater, they are not Tropical fish and their make up is nothing like Tropical Fishes. If your aquarium is ambient room temperature this will be fine. Avoid putting near a radiator which may give a temperature rise or fall throughout the day. A quick fluctuating temperature is not desirable. Ideally between 16-20 Deg is a nice temperature for these fish to be at. Above this temperature the fish will be fine if the natural temperature takes the water there, but higher temperatures should be induced only if you wish to encourage extra growth rate or to help spawning of fish to take place. For 10 Deg and below the fish will start to slow down as the water temperature controls the body temperature and activity of the fish and although again the fish will be fine below 10 Deg their movement becomes much less and their feeding requirements also.

Water / Air movement the aquarium

All Fancy Goldfish need areas of rest so remember what ever filtration you are using if it involves returns of water or airlines within the aquarium please ensure that you are not creating a whirl pool type of undercurrent and movement. That is to say that any water return pipe should be directed back within the Aquarium with careful consideration as to how this is done. If you have a spray bar then maybe turn it towards the glass a bit more rather than straight out across the aquarium water. Use a water return pipe diffused against the side of the aquarium and try to avoid large water displacement. The air/oxygen is the same; small diffused bubbles are best so give consideration to this also We don’t want thumping great Air Volcanoes!!

The point is that Long or Short tail, large or small fish, Fancy Goldfish sometimes like to rest especially at night, so if you set up their home where by they cannot relax it’s a bit like you being on a treadmill constantly, and all your good food application will be more than burnt off by them having to constantly be on the move rather than the food being converted into good body structure.

If you want to achieve the best potential from your Fancy Goldfish generally a 20-25% weekly water change will help the fish flourish. This does not mean however if you don’t do this the fish will not do very well. It just means that any hormones given off by the fish are removed by the water changes and these hormones generally affect how the fish grow and behave. Filters generally do not have any impact on the hormones so these would remain within the water if water changes are not implemented, so the environment becomes more static. The upshot of this is that fish generally would grow slower and would be less sexually stimulated so breeding the fish, if this is desired, becomes a little more challenging.

A word of warning about the other extreme. I have known people to change much larger amounts of water in one go, such as 80-90% thinking this is the best for the fish. The problem with this is that any large water change in one go will be sure to change the mechanics and dynamics of the aquarium significantly, and also how the fish reacts after this has happened. From my experience any big changes too quick do not always work out the best for the fish.

Water changes

Feeding Fish

We generally tend to mostly use a small floating pellet combined with Frozen Bloodworm to feed our fish regardless of size. In my opinion there is absolutely no evidence that feeding floating foods causes swim bladder problems in Fancy Goldfish, which is why for over 40 years we have been using mostly floating foods. On occasions we do use a small sinking pellet for fish we receive that have been raised on sinking food, such as the Top View Ranchu that are raised from babies on sinking pellet. There are other foods that you can also supplement this diet with such as Gel foods etc, but I would avoid anything that may compromise your water quality. A good example of this would be any Vegetables or meats eaten by Humans. Although no real significant harm would be done to the fish there is no actual real benefit and generally would not help the general water quality in your aquarium, and more than anything else this type of food are not part of a Fancy Goldfishes natural diet.

We would recommend feeding the fish twice a day, and as a general rule of thumb if the food you have put in is eaten within the first five minutes then that is probably not quite enough. However, if there is any visible food after half an hour then that is probably too much You will soon find the right level which does vary according to how many fish you have in the aquarium.

Please see our Foods we recommend and sell within our Website.