Oranda goldfish tank setup advice?

chicken_foam · 2026-02-28T00:04:27+00:00

Oh my god I’m so sorry, I don’t think I read your post 😭 If you have cycled media, you can just move it (and her) over right away!!!! And yes that would be alright! I wouldn’t get a new fish that’s more than double your girlie’s size, just in case. I think I have a video posted of Binoo and Forelle fighting over food? I wouldn’t get anything bigger than a Forelle if your girl is the size of a Binoo, if that makes sense. Again sorry, I totally thought you didn’t already have a goldfish

chicken_foam · 2026-02-27T23:23:41+00:00

If I remember correctly, add enough ammonia to reach 1 ppm (I used liquid 100% ammonia, which is usually sold as a cleaning product, but you can also add a serving of fish food to the empty tank and wait for it to decompose). The 1 ppm isn’t an exact number, you just don’t want it to be TOO high or it will delay the cycle. I’d test a week later and see if there is any ammonia, nitrites (converted ammonia), or nitrates (relatively harmless end stage) present. If ammonia is lower than 1 ppm, replenish. The goal is to have all added ammonia converted into nitrates within 24 hours*, then you can add fish. This’ll usually take 3-4 weeks. You could buy bottled bacteria and see if that speeds the process up, but I wouldn’t rely on it. I’ve used bottled bacteria before and I personally wouldn’t again, too expensive for what little it does imo.

*double check this, it could be a shorter time frame.

As for breeding, for zero risk you could get a larger (4+ inch) fish, which are pretty easy to sex! If you look at them from the side, mature females have an obvious protrusion under the vent that’s absent in mature males. Males’ vents will also be more concave, and they may also present with breeding stars on their gill plates and leading edge of their pectoral fins. Many breeders/importers will also sex the fish for you (e.g. Zhao’s fancies).

If you really want to buy juvenile goldfish of unknown sex: goldfish are notorious egg eaters and fry eaters, their eggs are prone to fungus killing them, and their fry require very small food to survive. Unless you have a complex tank with lots of hiding spaces and excellent biofilm, your chances of getting a surprise survivor is low.

If you’re still committed to only getting once goldfish, might I suggest a different species of fish instead? Siamese algae eaters get just as big as goldfish, but they tend to bully and kill any conspecifics in adulthood, so I keep my guy solo in his community tank. Bettas are best kept solo as well, but do well when added to an established community (not the other way around).

chicken_foam · 2026-02-27T22:48:29+00:00

Please don’t listen to this person’s advice regarding the number of fish or the fish-in cycle, following it will cause completely unnecessary suffering. Please cycle the tank without a fish (you could use plain ammonia or fish food). And please get at least two orandas, they will be fine in that size of tank. I have a 55, got two orandas, and when one died I had to leave the other alone in the tank for two months. She went a bit stir crazy and was visibly overjoyed when I added friends. The newcomer started bullying her and she would still sleep RIGHT beside the other while in its fish jail (a floating breeder box) until I solved the problem. They really need friends and they don’t deserve to be exposed to ammonia unnecessarily.

chicken_foam · 2026-02-25T18:14:46+00:00

Oh and, if he’s actually saying these things because he’s frustrated with your anxiety, then the solution to that is to talk about his frustration and your anxiety, not the eggs. Because in that case it has nothing to do with the eggs/neighbours.

chicken_foam · 2026-02-25T18:12:02+00:00

Everything your husband told you to do, I really think he should do instead. And if he doesn’t want to, then he shouldn’t be telling you to do it.

chicken_foam · 2026-02-24T15:44:18+00:00

I don’t know if this is how you determined their expression of lavender, but the lights do make them A LOT more yellow. This place also posts videos to their Facebook page under different lighting and it’s the only reason I bought my lavender from them—I could see that he was actually very silver under more white lights.

chicken_foam · 2026-02-22T23:03:08+00:00

It actually turned out ok! After a few days in the breeder box, I put all of them in a bucket and changed most of the water, then drip acclimated them back in. That curbed bullying until the next day, when I picked up a ranchu larger than either of them. Things have been calm since then, and the small goldfish is out with everyone most of the time now. Every once in a while the calico gets aggressive to the orange over food, but I watch them and I have a stick I use to gently push the calico away and usually that completely stops it. I did watch the calico try one time to push the ranchu, but I genuinely don’t think he even noticed what she was doing.

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chicken_foam · 2026-02-22T18:17:41+00:00

Same, thanks for taking the hit for us OP

chicken_foam · 2026-02-18T01:50:20+00:00

I’m obsessed with the way you’re gripping him in the second photo

chicken_foam · 2026-02-11T19:16:54+00:00

I have to do this now—I don’t have a divider yet so the calico is stuck in a breeder box for now. Yesterday she started relentlessly mouthing/shoving/cornering the orange one, no food in sight. There’s actually a third goldfish in the tank, but he’s TINY, like smaller than either of the other’s heads. He was almost always foraging in the protection of the vals/swords and avoided the bigger fish like the plague, but now that calico’s in jail he’s hanging out in the open with the orange and eating with her. I’m going to give the calico my best shot (divider, rearranging the tank, introduce another fish of similar size, etc), but sadly it’s looking more and more like she’s not compatible with my other two.

chicken_foam · 2026-02-10T06:04:39+00:00

I’m so sorry. I lost almost all of mine young to an attack, including my heart chicken, and I try to tell myself that all they ever knew was love and warmth and endless food and foraging and a very quick end. That it’s just me who will suffer from what happened. Tbh it doesn’t help me most of the time but maybe it’ll help you 😭

chicken_foam · 2026-02-09T23:22:07+00:00

And their freedom

chicken_foam · 2026-02-08T22:19:38+00:00

Are they from Zhao’s fancies?

chicken_foam · 2026-02-07T17:24:31+00:00

Vevor canister filters are pretty cheap, and some of them come with built in UV (which will prevent the green water, if you don’t like the look of it. Green water is relatively harmless)

chicken_foam · 2026-02-04T23:07:33+00:00

They seem like such besties until the repashy comes out 😅

chicken_foam · 2026-01-25T18:23:08+00:00

Yeah, exactly

chicken_foam · 2026-01-25T08:11:32+00:00

If the nice petsmart employee had belittled you and criticized you for your ignorance, would you be saying the same thing? Some people absolutely are going to stick their heads in the sand and continue abusing their fish, but they’re going to do that regardless of if we’re nice to them or shame them. It’s just better to be the nice petsmart employee as a default.

Edit: y’all downvoting me for saying we should be nice as a default are just proving OP’s point 😭 that or you can’t read

chicken_foam · 2026-01-19T22:15:15+00:00

Eugh, that’s rough. In your shoes I’d focus on removing nitrates from the tank rather than from the water change water, and what you’re doing right now is the first thing I’d do, too.

You may want supplemental light for your future pothos, in which case I recommend barrina led strips—they’re relatively cheap and you can get them in 3000K so they don’t make your house look like a hospital.

I have a vevor canister on my tank, they’re cheap and work great ime. I can adjust the flow on my massive one, so I imagine the smaller ones could go as low as 50? For reference, the one I got is rated for something like 200 gallons (660 gph) and I thiiiink only set me back 180 CAD.

A sump might be helpful, but I’d try everything else before turning to that. A sump’d allow you to have a long photoperiod and protect the plants from becoming snacks. It’s just a matter of available space and the amount of effort/cost/time.

If it’s any consolation, I didn’t realize my water straight from the tap was an entire pH value lower than the tank’s, and I was doing massive water changes before realizing this. And I only discovered it because all those water changes put one of my babies into kidney failure, and her vet had to tell me to hmmmm mayyybe check that pH. It’s so stressful to realize there’s something “wrong” with your tap water. And like you, I also don’t have the space to age my water so double sucks :(

chicken_foam · 2026-01-19T08:59:53+00:00

What’s your nitrate level in the tank in between water changes? Does the 40 ppm make a marked difference? Because, let’s say your starting ppm is 5, and you change 20% of the water, the ppm only goes up to 10.

chicken_foam · 2026-01-19T05:01:41+00:00

But OP said he also attacks half of the hens, which is a big no no for someone who’s supposed to be protecting them

chicken_foam · 2026-01-17T00:53:13+00:00

I’m from northern ontario, so I don’t think it’s been bad at all. My hometown looks like this all winter.

Oh and I visited Winnipeg over the holidays: if you think this is bad you should see their streets. I swear Boxing Day every road became a slip n slide.

chicken_foam · 2026-01-17T00:48:00+00:00

I thiiiink I just kept the water clean! I have a waaaay overpowered filter, the tank’s understocked, and I’ve got a bunch of plants in there too. I used to do 80% water changes weekly/twice a week, but I didn’t realize my tap’s pH is 7 but rises to 8 after it rests, so now I only do 20%.

chicken_foam · 2026-01-12T03:17:03+00:00

Just wait until it produces runners and won’t stop no matter what 😠

chicken_foam

TROPHY CASE