Wilhelm Joshua Tan

1Silver dollar
1 pleco
2 goldfish
many livebearing fish
1 rainbow shark
+ =death

Chief_waterchanger

What size tank? What kinda livebearers?

Bryn

got any pictures? whats with the gold fish? lol

Callum The Cat

Bryn

callum is correct gold fish should not really be in there plus they are boring and way to easy to keep

timg

I am going to disagree with Callum, even though many would argue, since I have a tank with goldfish and tropical mixed in together. They all live at 27c and are quite happy together, but you need a sizeable tank to pull it off, since the goldfish will grow very rapidly. I have angels, balas, clown loaches, rainbow shark, cories, a leopard plec and a betta in the same tank with my goldfish in a 100 gallon tank.

Silver dollars are schooling fish and there should be at least 3 in the tank to be comfortable. But it all depends on the size of your tank as to whether you can add any more fish or whether you need to take some out.

COBettaCouple

yes.. but at night the goldfish plays dirty pranks on the tropical fish when you're not watching. :

timg

They have to find a time when I'm NOT watching, you know that Dave!

COBettaCouple

.. maybe they pay the angel fish to be a diversion.

timg

That is possible, but the angels don't like the snail that much... they would be much better off trying to bribe the sharks... they love the snails!

Bryn

gold fish arnt tropical fish.

"Goldfish and tropicals are also incompatible, since most larger tropical fish will harass the goldfish"

please if you think they are the same read this... they are not


http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/3363/vs.htm

karenmoore

No-one said they were.

Forgive me, but in my experience this has not been a problem. I have cichlids, anabantoids and loaches in with mine, all of which are well known to be territorial and bullies, but the goldfish are big enough to not be intimidated or harrassed by them and they are all happily living together. Check out some of the vids on YouTube that I have made and you'll see them all together.

The article you have highlighted mentions This is not strictly true. Angels in particular are not fast moving, neither are many larger tropicals. Goldfish, on the other hand, are gracious, but are more than capable of speed and agility if they want. Do you change your pH when you do a water change, or do they all have the same water? If you keep both types in the same home, they both live in the same pH level! And a big tropical fish won't? This comes down to selection of fish in the aquarium. I don't put neons with fully grown angels, because I end up with no neons!
It also states If you have a variety of fish in a tank, it's called a community tank. The whole idea of a community tank is to be diverse and interesting. If you want to focus on a particular fish, you keep them in species tanks! How many people can look at an 8' community tank and take the whole thing in with one glance? What is this author talking about? You should read an article that I have written about this very subject Here where it outlines the wonderful versitility of the goldfish. I love them, and would not do anything that causes them harm or distress. If I saw any sort of problem there, I would separate them, but there is no need.

Nothing in fish keeping is cast in stone, and most fish are incredibly adaptable. Given the right conditions or time to acclimatise, they will thrive. Incidentally, I have a friend who has goldfish and tropical in the same cold water tank. She has goldfish, danios and balas living together in cold water. I don't recommend this, but it works for her, so who am I to dictate?

Give Wilhelm a chance to explain his setup before you condemn him. By the same token, do you really want to be so dictatorial to insist that what people do is so wrong? Have you ever tried it yourself? I have, and I have found that it can work!

timg

Sorry, didn't realise that I was signed in as Karen!

You haven't seen ours!

To continue,

The tropical food is perfectly acceptable to the goldfish, and I vary the diet by giving goldfish food every so often too. There was a time when I couldn't get any tropical food, so had to use goldfish food for all my fish. None of the fish died, or suffered ill-effects. I wouldn't say that tropical fish could survive indefinitely on goldfish food, but for a week or so they were fine! The goldfish are quite capable of surviving on tropical food though. They have no problems with either!

One other small point worth mentioning: I don't think goldfish are native to the U.K. or to any of the more temperate climates. We have bred them to survive in low temperatures, because that's where we live, but I have just finished talking to a client of mine and they kept goldfish and koi carp in their pond in Trinidad, where the temperatures are regularly in excess of 40C, and the pond water rarely fell below 20C. They didn't have a chiller to keep the pond temperature down!

sirdarksol

I'm going to have to join the dissent on the concept that goldfish and tropicals cannot mix.
Coldwater fish actually does not mean that they need their water cold. It means that they prefer periodic changes in their water temperature. The biggest thing this affects is their ability to breed. They need a drop in temperature followed by a rise in temperature (winter followed by spring) to breed.
I had a tank of barbs that didn't harass my long-finned goldfish or butterfly koi, so bullying isn't always a problem.
I mix all of my fish's food. My barbs get goldfish/koi food periodically, the goldfish and koi get tropical food, everyone gets bloodworms and fresh veggies. I think this simulates more of a normal diet, since there isn't much on the planet that eats only one food.

As far as goldfish being boring, that's really a matter of opinion. I consider danios to be boring, yet they are one of the most popular types of fish to keep. I've met people who think of mollies, or dwarf puffers, or shrimp as boring.

BTW, wilhelm, tank sounds nice. Would love to see pics

armadillo

Am really curious about the whole goldfish issue, including temps.

So, Sirdarksol, you've had this setup successfully then, right? I think I'll change my advice on future gold-fish temperature questions to 'some have reported success but this is not the traditional set-up' or something like that.

And I don't find goldfish boring at all. They're among the smartest fish.

AlisonChristine

I've seen goldfish do fine under many different water temps (we put some in the tropical community tanks in the store to deal with snails), but the one thing I will say is that their coloring is much more vibrant with colder temps. When they're too warm, they tend to get washed out, and lose distinctive markings.

But, that could just be a fair number of isolated cases, not a general species rule.

armadillo

I love goldfish, but I don't want to be overstocked and they're such poopers.

TheEssigs

I also have had a goldfish in my community tank and he did very well. You really need to ensure that the tank is large enough, but otherwise... it worked out wonderfully for us. We now have a species specific tank for golds... Since we found them far from boring, we wanted to keep more... matter of fact, they are the most entertaining, and far more interactive with us than any of the other fish we keep (aside of our betta, of course)!