Over my head

[Altrnachk]

We got a 5.5 gallon freshwater aquarium when our son won a goldfish at a school carnival in April. We bought a Platy and a couple guppies to add too at the advice of the pet store. Last week, I went and bought a new guppy to replace one that died. I noticed after we got home it looked bloated. Did some research and determined it was pregnant. Went back to the petstore and they sold me a net thing to quarantine the pregnant fish in the tank. I did that and this morning, she started having babies. She is apparently voracious though, because she was swimming around trying to catch and eat them in between delivering them. She did eat some. My husband finally said we should put her with the rest of the fish before we end up with zero babies. It looks like we have 10 babies that didn't get eaten (though some haven't moved) and she still had a black spot, which probably means she's still pregnant and will eventually deliver the rest with the other fish. I'm really just at a loss of what to do.

 

[Magnum 350]

Put something in the tank that the babies can hide in. Live plants are best but artificial will work to. The gold fish will eat them to and when he gets big he will eat the adult guppies as well.

 

[Altrnachk]

I was wondering about the goldfish. He has grown a ton since we got him. So we will eventually need to get him his own tank probably? What size?

 

[Magnum 350]

I don't know how big he will evetually get but the one i had grew to 6 inchs an was thick. He was in a 30 gallon till i put him in a pond.

 

[plantnoob]

Do you have a good plan to house the babies? The only way they'll survive is if they're in a separate tank. Even with some spots to hide in your 5.5 gal tank they might all get eaten eventually. Possible that one or two may end up surviving. For a separate tank (or maybe a bowl) you'll need water from your cycled aquarium and proper maintenance to make sure your water parameters are ok.

On a side note, your tank is small for all the fishes you have. Just the goldfish alone needs more than your tank.

Also, please take a minute to read about cycling your aquarium if you don't already know about it. It's a stocky thread in this forum.

Cheers and good luck!


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[54seaweed]

Before I re-homed my gold fish to a person with a nice pond mine were almost 9 inch
they do grow fast I got them out of a feeder tank not thinking they would last long as I remember as a kid they died off almost instantly .
I kept the 2 goldfish in a 40 breeder tank by themselves till I made the mistake of saving a small pleco that grew to over a foot before I re-homed him also .

I would say get a 29g with a few other fish that will keep the fry population in check
but that gold fish in time will need a new home

 

[Altrnachk]

Yeah - I noticed the goldfish is growing fast. I too remembered getting them as a kid and them dying right away. Didn't realize how big they get. We started this whole fish tank thing thanks to the goldfish, but now I'm really liking the guppies. Using Aquadvisor, if I pretend I don't have the goldfish, it looks like I could get quite a few guppies in a 20 gallon tank. I was thinking we could get a 20 gallon one set up for our adult fish and use the 5 gallon for the fry? There are only 10 survivors from this morning in the breeding net, as the rest got eaten, and I'm sure all 10 of those probably wont survive either. As for the goldfish, not sure what to do with him right now. He's a tolerable size right now, but I do know he will get bigger. My son is pretty proud of his carnival fish.

 

[Magnum 350]

I have a 90 gallon heavily planted aquarium with just guppies and i love them. They breed like crazy. Of all the fish i have ever had i liked them the best. Moe the gold fish were still buds. I still feed him by hand. I swear moe looks me in the eye and says whats up. Hope you can keep him in a tank dedicated for him and then you will see what mean. He has been with me for 6 years. Rescued him from my brothers oscar tank. Hope your son will like his gold fish as much as i like moe.

 

[Altrnachk]

Here's a pic of what things are looking like now.

 

[Magnum 350]

The colors of those will make beautiful fry. Tank looking good.

 

[Altrnachk]

We went and got a 65 gallon tank today. We have our goldfish in there for now, plus 6 guppies, a black Molly, sucker fish, Australian blowfish. Looks empty!!!

 

[Altrnachk]

And Aquadvisor still says my capacity is off. That goldfish throws it off!! so does the new Plecostomus

 

[plantnoob]

Ha ha, looks nice! Looks like you have some additional inhabitants. Did you use any of the filter media from the old tank to seed this one? That would really help sped up the cycling process. If you have the filter cartridge from the smaller tank, see if you can stick it into this filtration setup. It will have the beneficial bacteria to convert ammonia into nitrates. Probably shouldn't get any more fish until this tank gets cycled fully.

Congratulations on the new purchase. I'm sure your son will really enjoy it!


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[plantnoob]

If the pleco is a common pleco, it grows huge. If you can exchange it for a bristle nose or rubber lip that grows about 6", you should be good. I'm always amazed at how stupid the sales people at the fish store are. Never a warning on what they're selling!


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[Altrnachk]

I'll have to go see if I can trade it. They told me it would be great in this tank. Go figure. I need to study up on Cycling the tank.

 

[plantnoob]

The sticky thread on the top of this forum has great information on this topic. Yeah, hope you can trade the pleco!


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[Altrnachk]

Our Platy is now just hanging out at the bottom. Hope he's okay!!