Thanks,
I have two Comet Gold Fish.
Long story, but hey! it got a tank in my house, and we have a lot of fun with these guys.
(Read on if you care to)
My Daughter won a gold fish, at a fair, a few years back, and took it to college with her in a little bowl. I figured it would be dead within a month from neglect. Well, a semester later and Twister (that's his name) is heartier than ever. I convince her to put him in a bigger tank with a filter. She gets him a 2 gallon tank (they don't want any thing bigger than 2.5 gal in the dorms). Another semester goes by and he is getting bigger. this time she gets a 3.5 gal tank.
Another year goes by and Twister gets so big he can barley turn around in the tank. My daughter leaves over the summer for an internship, and leaves the fish with us to take care of, My wife starts to get attached to the little guy, so I seize the opportunity and get a 10 gal for it so it has room to swim around.
About 2 months later (two weeks ago), I'm at the pet store getting crickets for my other daughter's gecko, and I see the cute little gold fish swimming around. I think to myself, Twister needs a friend! 28 cents later, and we have two gold fish in a 10 gal tank.
Not thinking too much about it, but with all the kids home for winter break, the fish must have been fed about 20 times per day.
You all know what comes next... new fish in the tank, lots of food, lots of poo... and blam! Ammonia spike! We caught it pretty quick, did a bunch of daily water changes, and tried to keep a good bio mass and oxygen going. The little guy got the worst of it, some Ammonia burns on his scales, he is recovering quite nicely.
Well, that gave me the next excuse to go bigger, the spot we have for the tank would really only support a 20 gal. I did a lot of research to find the best filter, within budget, that could keep the water clear, and more importantly the ammonia down. This site really helped me, I decided on the Fluval Aqua Clear. I needed to make a few adjustments to it (thanks again to the discussions from the forums). So after one day the water was sparkling clear and stable, the fish are happy and the kids are not feeding them as much.
