Beginner's Guide to Caring for Goldfish

Goldfish are one of the most popular pet fish, if not the most popular, in the United States. Primarily because they are easy to care for and beautiful, goldfish serve as an icon for fish keepers. Regardless if you're a beginning fish enthusiast or a seasoned aquarium junkie, knowing how to care for goldfish is a must.

  1. Tank

    • House a goldfish in an aquarium measuring at least 10 times its length. If you wish to house more than one goldfish, a good rule of thumb is a 20-gallon tank for two to four goldfish and a 20-plus gallon tank for more than four goldfish. Purchase an acrylic or glass tank.

    Interior

    • Include pebbles and foliage with the interior of your tank. When caring for goldfish, it is important to give your goldfish substrate and foliage to stimulate their environment, as well to make it visually appealing to you. Contrary to popular belief, goldfish bowls make terrible aquariums because of their lack of interior furnishings, which has been seen to dramatically lower the lifespan of goldfish.

    Food

    • Goldfish are hardy fish and will eat almost any variant of fish food. While a more stable choice for a food supply would be fish pellets, goldfish can also do quite fine with homemade fish food and the occasional "treat." Feed them a pinch of food for each goldfish in the tank once a day.

    Cleaning

    • One of the drawbacks of caring for a goldfish is cleaning their fish tank. Goldfish are one of the fastest growing aquarium fish, which makes them one of the fastest producers of waste. With most fish species, cleaning the tank once every two months is ideal, but with goldfish you will need to clean their tank once a month. Regularly scrape algae off the sides with an algae scrubber.